At the earth's core

Edgar Rice Burroughs

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by

Edgar Rice Burroughs

"/\ huge, slimy amphibian it was . . . with toad-
like body and the mighty jaws of an alligator.
Its immense carcass must have weighed
tons, and yet it moved swiftly and silently
toward me. I could imagine how my first an-
cestor felt that distant, prehistoric morn that
he encountered for the first time the thing
that had me cornered now beside the rest-
less, mysterious sea. There seemed nothing
to do but stand supinely and await my end. . . ."

More than a quarter century after his
death, Edgar Rice Burroughs is still recog-
nized as one of the world's most popular
science fiction authors. His Tarzan and John
Carter of Mars editions have sold millions of
copies around the globe, and his restless
imagination has swept excited readers from
the moon, to Venus and out to the edge of
the galaxy. But one of ERB's most unusual
and intriguing locales is right here on Earth
— in the lost underground land of Pellucidar,
a forbidding prehistoric world that forms the
background for AT THE EARTH'S CORE.

The excitement began shortly after
Dr. Abner Perry built "The Iron Mole," a
huge rocket-powered burrowing machine de-
signed to pierce the earth's crust and explore
the secrets deep beneath the surface.

Along with David Innes, the handsome
young backer of the project. Perry set the
giant machine in motion for a test bore . . .
only something went very wrong. Totally out

(continued on back flap)

BOOKCLUB EDITION

/-* • »^ «»-<

AT THE EARTH'S CORE

AT THE

EARTH'S CORE

by Edgu Bice Bnnonghs

Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
Garden City, New York

Copyright © 1914 by Frank A. Munsey Company

All Rights Reserved

Designed by Ron Lomhardi

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PROLOG 1

I TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES 3

II A STRANGE WORLD 13

III A CHANGE OF MASTERS 24

IV DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL 33
V SLAVES 44

VI THE BEGINNING OF HORROR 53

VII FREEDOM 60

VIII THE MAHAR TEMPLE 67

IX THE FACE OF DEATH 81

X PHUTRA AGAIN 89

XI FOUR DEAD MAHARS 102

XII PURSUIT 109

XIII THE SLY ONE 114

XIV THE GARDEN OF EDEN 120
XV BACK TO EARTH 141

AT THE EARTH'S CORE

PROLOG

In the first place please bear in mind that I do not ex-
pect you to believe this story. Nor could you wonder had
you witnessed a recent experience of mine when, in the
armor of bhssful and stupendous ignorance, I gaily nar-
rated the gist of it to a Fellow of the Royal Geological So-
ciety on the occasion of my last trip to London.

You would surely have thought that I had been de-
tected in no less a heinous crime than the purloining of
the Crown Jewels from the Tower, or putting poison in
the coflFee of His Majesty the King.

The erudite gentleman in whom I confided congealed
before I was half through!— it is all that saved him from
exploding— and my dreams of an Honorary Fellowship,
gold medals, and a niche in the Hall of Fame faded into
the thin, cold air of his arctic atmosphere.

But I beheve the story, and so would you, and so would
the learned Fellow of tlie Royal Geological Society, had
you and he heard it from the hps of the man who told it
to me. Had you seen, as I did, the fire of truth in those
gray eyes; had you felt the ring of sincerity in that quiet
voice; had you realized the pathos of it all— you, too,
would beheve. You would not have needed the final ocu-
lar proof that I had— the weird rhamphorhynchus-hke
creature which he had brought back with him from the
inner world.

I came upon him quite suddenly, and no less unex-
pectedly, upon the rim of the great Sahara Desert. He
was standing before a goat-skin tent amidst a clump of

2 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

date palms within a tiny oasis. Close by was an Arab
douar of some eight or ten tents.

I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My party
consisted of a dozen children of the desert— I was the only
"white" man. As we approached the Httle clump of ver-
dure I saw the man come from his tent and with hand-
shaded eyes peer intently at us. At sight of me he ad-
vanced rapidly to meet us.

"A white manl" he cried. "May the good Lord be
praisedl I have been watching you for hours, hoping
against hope that this time there would be a white man.
Tell me the date. What year is it?"

And when I had told him he staggered as though he
had been struck full in the face, so that he was compelled
to grasp my stirrup leather for support.

*lt cannot bel" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be!
Tell me that you are mistaken, or that you are but
joking."

"I am telling you the truth, my friend," I replied. **Why
should I deceive a stranger, or attempt to, in so simple a
matter as the date?"

For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head.

"Ten years I" he murmured, at last. "Ten years, and I
thought that at the most it could be scarce more than
one I" That night he told me his story— the story that I
give you here as nearly in his own words as I can recall
them.

CHAPTER I

TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES

I WAS born in Connecticut about thirty years ago. My
name is David Innes. My father was a wealthy mine
owner. When I was nineteen he died. All his property was
to be mine when I had attained my majority— provided
that I had devoted the two years intervening in close ap-
phcation to the great business I was to inherit.

I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent— not
because of the inheritance, but because I loved and hon-
ored my father. For six months I toiled in the mines and
in the counting-rooms, for I wished to know every minute
detail of the business.

Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an
old fellow who had devoted the better part of a long life
to the perfection of a mechanical subterranean prospec-
tor. As relaxation he studied paleontology. I looked over
his plans, listened to his arguments, inspected his working
model— and then, convinced, I advanced the funds neces-
sary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector.

I shall not go into the details of its construction— it lies
out there in the desert now— about two miles from here.
Tomorrow you may care to ride out and see it. Roughly, it
is a steel cylinder a hundred feet long, and jointed so that
it may turn and twist through soHd rock if need be. At
one end is sl mighty revolving drill operated by an engine
which Perry said generated more power to the cubic inch
than any other engine did to the cubic foot. I remember
that he used to claim that that invention alone would

4 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

make us fabulously wealthy— we were going to make the
whole thing public after the successful issue of our first
secret trial— but Perry never returned from that trial trip,
and I only after ten years.

I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that mo-
mentous occasion upon which we were to test the practi-
cahty of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight
when we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry had
constructed his "iron mole" as he was wont to call the
thing. The great nose rested upon the bare earth of the
floor. We passed through the doors into the outer jacket,
secured them, and then passing on into the cabin, which
contained the controlHng mechanism within the inner
tube, switched on the electric hghts.

Perry looked to his generator; to the great tanks that
held the life-giving chemicals with which he was to man-
ufacture fresh air to replace that which we consumed in
breathing; to his instruments for recording temperatures,
speed, distance, and for examining the materials through
which we were to pass.

He tested the steering device, and overlooked the
mighty cogs which transmitted its marvelous velocity to
the giant drill at the nose of his strange craft.

Our seats, into which we strapped ourselves, were so
arranged upon transverse bars that we would be upright
whether the craft were ploughing her way downward into
the bowels of the earth, or running horizontally along
some great seam of coal, or rising vertically toward the
surface again.

At length all was ready. Perry bowed his head in
prayer. For a moment we were silent, and then the old
man's hand grasped the starting lever. There was a fright-
ful roaring beneath us— the giant frame trembled and vi-
brated—there was a rush of sound as the loose earth
passed up through the hollow space between the inner

Edgar Rice Burroughs 5

and outer jackets to be deposited in our wake. We were
oflFI

The noise was deafening. The sensation was frightful
For a full minute neither of us could do aught but cling
with the proverbial desperation of the drowning man to
the handrails of our swinging seats. Then Perry glanced
at the thermometer.

"Gad!** he cried, "it cannot be possible— quick! What
does the distance meter read?'*

That and the speedometer were both on my side of the
cabin, and as I turned to take a reading from the former I
could see Perry muttering.

**Ten degrees rise— it cannot be possible!** and then I
saw him tug frantically upon the steering wheel.

As I finally found the tiny needle in the dim hght I
translated Perry's evident excitement, and my heart sank
within me. But when I spoke I hid the fear which
haunted me.

"It will be seven hundred feet, Perry," I said, 'Tjy the
time you can turn her into the horizontal.**

"You'd better lend me a hand then, my boy," he re-
phed, "for I cannot budge her out of the vertical alone.
God give that our combined strength may be equal to the
task, for else we are lost.**

I wormed my way to the old man's side with never a
doubt but that the great wheel would yield on the instant
to the power of my young and vigorous muscles. Nor was
my behef mere vanity, for always had my physique been
the envy and despair of my fellows. And for that very
reason it had waxed even greater than nature had in-
tended, since my natmral pride in my great strength had
led me to care for and develop my body and my muscles
by every means within my power. What with boxing,
football, and base-ball, I had been in training since child-
hood.

6 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

And so it was with the utmost confidence that I laid
hold of the huge iron rim; but though I threw every
ounce of my strength into it, my best effort was as ima-
vaihng as Perry's had been— the thing would not budge—
the grim, insensate, horrible thing that was holding us
upon the straight road to death!

At length I gave up the useless struggle, and without a
word returned to my seat. There was no need for words—
at least none that I could imagine, unless Perry desired to
pray. And I was quite sure that he would, for he never
left an opportunity neglected where he might sandwich
in a prayer. He prayed when he arose in the morning, he
prayed before he ate, he prayed when he had finished
eating, and before he went to bed at night he prayed
again. In between he often found excuses to pray even
when the provocation seemed rather far-fetched to my
worldly eyes— now that he was about to die I felt positive
that I should witness a perfect orgy of prayer— if one may
allude with such a simile to so solemn an act.

But to my astonishment I discovered that with death
staring him in the face Abner Perry was transformed into
a new being. From his hps there flowed— not prayer— but
a clear and limpid stream of undiluted profanity, and it
was all directed at that quietly stubborn piece of unyield-
ing mechanism.

**I should think. Perry," I chided, "that a man of your
professed rehgiousness would rather be at his prayers
than cursing in the presence of imminent death.'*

"Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you? That
is nothing by comparison with the loss the world must
suffer. Why, David, within this iron cylinder we have
demonstrated possibihties that science has scarce
dreamed. We have harnessed a new principle, and with it
animated a piece of steel with the power of ten thousand
men. That two hves will be snuffed out is nothing to the

Edgar Rice Burroughs 7

world calamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth
the discoveries that I have made and proved in the suc-
cessful construction of the thing that is now carrying us
farther and farther toward the eternal central fires."

I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more
concerned with our own immediate future than with any
problematical loss which the world might be about to
suffer. The world was at least ignorant of its bereavement,
while to me it was a real and terrible actuahty.

**What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation
beneath the mask of a low and level voice.

"We may stop here, and die of asphyxiation when our
atmosphere tanks are empty," rephed Perry, "or we may
continue on with the shght hope that we may later
sufficiently deflect the prospector from the vertical to
carry us along the arc of a great circle which must even-
tually return us to the surface. If we succeed in so doing
before we reach the higher internal temperatiu'e we may
even yet survive. There would seem to me to be about
one chance in several miUion that we shall succeed-
otherwise we shall die more quickly but no more surely
than as though we sat supinely waiting for the torture of
a slow and horrible death."

I glanced at the thermometer. It registered no de-
grees. While we were talking the mighty iron mole had
bored its way over a mile into the rock of the earth's
crust

**Let us continue on, then," I rephed. "It should soon
be over at this rate. You never intimated that the speed of
this thing would be so high, Perry. Didn't you know it?"

"No," he answered. "I could not figure the speed ex-
actly, for I had no instrument for measuring the mighty
power of my generator. I reasoned, however, that we
should make about five hundred yards an hour."

"And we are making seven miles an hour," I concluded

8 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

for him, as I sat with my eyes upon the distance meter.
"How thick is the earth's crust, Perry?" I asked.

"There are ahnost as many conjectures as to that as
there are geologists," was his answer. "One estimates it
thirty miles, because the internal heat, increasing at the
rate of about one degree to each sixty to seventy feet
depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most refractory sub-
stances at that distance beneath the surface. Another
finds that the phenomena of precession and nutation re-
quire that the earth, if not entirely soHd, must at least
have a shell not less than eight hundred to a thousand
miles in thickness. So there you are. You may take your
choice."

"And if it should prove solid?" I asked.

"It wih be all the same to us in the end, David," rephed
Perry. "At the best our oil fuel will suffice to carry us but
three or four days, while our atmosphere cannot last to
exceed three. Neither, then, is sufficient to bear us in
safety through eight thousand miles of rock to the an-
tipodes."

"If the crust is of sufficient thickness we shall come to a
final stop between six and seven hundred miles beneath
the earth's surface; but during the last hundred and fifty
miles of our journey we shall be corpses. Am I correct?** I
asked.

"Quite correct, David. Are you frightened?"

"I do not know. It all has come so suddenly that I
scarce beHeve that either of us reahzes the real terrors of
our position. I feel that I should be reduced to panic; but
yet I am not. I imagine that the shock has been so great
as to partially stun our sensibiHties."

Again I turned to the thermometer. The mercury was
rising v^th less rapidity. It was now but 140 degrees, al-
though we had penetrated to a depth of nearly four miles.
I told Perry, and he smiled.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 9

*We have shattered one theory at least," was his only
comment, and then he returned to his self-assumed occu-
pation of fluently cursing the steering wheel. I once
heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have
seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's masterful
and scientific imprecations.

Once more I tried my hand at the wheel, but I might as
well have essayed to swing the earth itself. At my sugges-
tion Perry stopped the generator, and as we came to rest I
again threw all my strength into a supreme effort to move
the thing even a hair's breadth— but the results were as
barren as when we had been travehng at top speed.

I shook my head sadly, and motioned to the starting
lever. Perry pulled it toward him, and once again we
were plunging downward toward eternity at the rate of
seven miles an hour. I sat with my eyes glued to the ther-
mometer and the distance meter. The mercury was rising
very slowly now, though even at 145 degrees it was al-
most unbearable within the narrow confines of our metal
prison.

About noon, or twelve hours after our start upon this
unfortunate journey, we had bored to a depth of eighty-
foiu* miles, at which point the mercury registered 153 de-
grees F.

Perry was becoming more hopeful, although upon what
meager food he sustained his optimism I could not con-
jecture. From cursing he had turned to singing— I felt that
the strain had at last affected his mind. For several hours
we had not spoken except as he asked me for the readings
of the instruments from time to time, and I announced
them. My thoughts were filled with vain regrets. I re-
called numerous acts of my past hfe which I should have
been glad to have had a few more years to hve down.
There was the affair in the Latin Commons at Andover
when Calhoun and I had put gunpowder in the stove—

10 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

and nearly killed one of the masters. And then— but what
was the use, I was about to die and atone for all these
things and several more. Already the heat was suflBcient
to give me a foretaste of the hereafter. A few more de-
grees and I felt that I should lose consciousness.

'What are the readings now, David?'* Perry's voice
broke in upon my somber reflections.

"Ninety miles and 153 degrees," I repHed.

"Gad, but we've knocked that thirty-mile-crust theory
into a cocked hatl" he cried gleefully.

"Precious lot of good it will do us," I growled back.

"But, my boy," he continued, "doesn't that tempera-
ture reading mean anything to you? Why, it hasn't gone
up in six miles. Think of it, son I"

"Yes, I'm thinking of it," I answered; "but what
difference will it make when our air supply is exhausted
whether the temperature is 153 degrees or 153,000? We'll
be just as dead, and no one will know the difference, any-
how." But I must admit that for some unaccountable rea-
son the stationary temperature did renew my waning
hope. What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor
did I try. The very fact, as Perry took pains to explain, of
the blasting of several very exact and learned scientific
hypotheses made it apparent that we could not know
what lay before us within the bowels of the earth, and so
we might continue to hope for the best, at least until we
were dead— when hope would no longer be essential to
our happiness. It was very good, and logical reasoning,
and so I embraced it.

At one hundred miles the temperature had dropped to
^52% degrees! When I announced it Perry reached
over and hugged me.

From then on until noon of the second day it continued
to drop until it became as uncomfortably cold as it had
been unbearably hot before. At the depth of two hundred

Edgar Rice Burroughs 1 1

and forty miles our nostrils were assailed by almost over-
powering ammonia fmnes, and the temperature had
dropped to ten below zero! We suflFered nearly two hours
of this intense and bitter cold, until at about two hundred
and forty-five miles from the surface of the earth we en-
tered a stratum of soHd ice, when the mercury quickly
rose to 32 degrees. During the next three hours we passed
through ten miles of ice, eventually emerging into an-
other series of ammonia-impregnated strata, where the
mercury again fell to ten degrees below zero.

Slowly it rose once more until we were convinced that
at last we were nearing the molten interior of the earth.
At four hundred miles the temperature had reached 153
degrees. Feverishly I watched the thermometer. Slowly it
rose. Perry had ceased singing and was at last praying.

Our hopes had received such a deathblow that the
gradually increasing heat seemed to our distorted imagi-
nations much greater than it really was. For another hour
I saw that pitiless colimin of mercury rise and rise until at
four hundred and ten miles it stood at 153 degrees. Now
it was that we began to hang upon those readings in al-
most breathless anxiety.

One himdred and fifty-three degrees had been the max-
imum temperature above the ice stratum. Would it stop
at this point again, or would it continue its merciless
climb? We knew that there was no hope, and yet with the
persistence of life itself we continued to hope against
practical certainty.

Ahready the air tanks were at low ebb— there was barely
enough of the precious gases to sustain us for another
twelve hours. But would we be ahve to know or care? It
seemed incredible.

At four hundred and twenty miles I took another
reading.

12 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

**PerryI" I shouted. "Perry, manl She's going down!
She's going down! She's 152 degrees again.**

"Gad I" he cried. "What can it mean? Can the earth be
cold at the center?"

"I do not know, Perry," I answered; "but thank God, if
I am to die it shall not be by fire— that is all that I have
feared. I can face the thought of any death but that."

Down, down went the mercury until it stood as low as
it had seven miles from the surface of the earth, and then
of a sudden the reahzation broke upon us that death was
very near. Perry was the first to discover it. I saw him
fussing with the valves that regulate the air supply. And
at the same time I experienced diflBculty in breathing. My
head felt dizzy— my limbs heavy.

I saw Perry crumple in his seat. He gave himself a
shake and sat erect again. Then he turned toward me.

"Good-bye, David," he said, "I guess this is the end,"
and then he smiled and closed his eyes.

"Good-bye, Perry, and good luck to you," I answered,
smihng back at him. But I fought off that awful lethargy.
I was very young— I did not want to die.

For an hour I battled against the cruelly enveloping
death that sxurounded me upon all sides. At first I found
that by chmbing high into the framework above me I
could find more of the precious hfe-giving elements, and
for a while these sustained me. It must have been an hour
after Perry had succumbed that I at last came to the reah-
zation that I could no longer carry on this unequal strug-
gle against the inevitable.

With my last flickering ray of consciousness I turned
mechanically toward the distance meter. It stood at ex-
actly five hundred miles from the earth's surface— and
then of a sudden the huge thing that bore us came to a
stop. The rattle of hmrtfing rock through the hollow jacket
ceased. The wild racing of the giant drill betokened that

Edgar Rice Burroughs 13

it was running loose in air— and then another truth flashed
upon me. The point of the prospector was above us.
Slowly it dawned on me that since passing through the
ice strata it had been above. We had turned in the ice and
sped upward toward the earth's crust. Thank Godl We
were safel

I put my nose to the intake pipe through which samples
were to have been taken during the passage of the pros-
pector through the earth, and my fondest hopes were
reahzed— a flood of fresh air was pouring into the iron
cabin. The reaction left me in a state of collapse, and I
lost consciousness.

CHAPTER n

A STRANGE WORLD

I WAS unconscious httle more than an instant, for as I
lunged forward from the crossbeam to which I had been
chnging, and fell with a crash to the floor of the cabin, the
shock brought me to myself.

My first concern was with Perry. I was horrified at the
thought that upon the very threshold of salvation he
might be dead. Tearing open his shirt I placed my ear to
his breast. I could have cried with rehef— his heart was
beating quite regularly.

At the water tank I wetted my handkerchief, slapping
it smartly across his forehead and face several times. In a
moment I was rewarded by the raising of his lids. For a
time he lay wide-eyed and quite uncomprehending. Then
his scattered wits slowly foregathered, and he sat up
sniffing the air with an expression of wonderment upon
his face.

"Why, David," he cried at last, "it's air, as sure as I

14 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

live. Why— why what does it mean? Where in the world
are we? What has happened?**

"It means that we re back at the surface all right.
Perry," I cried; *l)ut where, I don't know. I haven't
opened her up yet. Been too busy reviving you. Lord,
man, but you had a close squeakl"

"You say we're back at the surface, David? How can
that be? How long have I been unconscious?"

"Not long. We turned in the ice stratum. Don't you re-
call the sudden whirling of our seats? After that the drill
was above us instead of below. We didn't notice it at the
time; but I recall it now."

"You mean to say that we turned back in the ice stra-
tum, David? That is not possible. The prospector cannot
turn unless its nose is deflected. If the nose were de-
flected from the outside— by some external force or re-
sistance—the steering wheel within would have moved in
response. The steering wheel has not budged, David,
since we started. You know that"

I did know it; but here we were with our drill racing in
pure air, and copious volumes of it pouring into the cabin.

"We couldn't have turned in the ice stratum, Perry, I
know as well as you," I repHed; 'iDut the fact remains that
we did, for here we are this minute at the surface of the
earth again, and I am going out to see just where."

"Better wait till morning, David— it must be midnight
now."

I glanced at the chronometer.

"Half after twelve. We have been out seventy-two
hours, so it must be midnight. Nevertheless I am going to
have a look at the blessed sky that I had given up all hope
of ever seeing again," and so saying I lifted the bars from
the inner door, and swung it open. There was quite a
quantity of loose material in the jacket, and this I had to

Edgar Rice Burroughs 15

remove with a shovel to get at the opposite door in the
outer shell.

In a short time I had removed enough of the earth and
rock to the floor of the cabin to expose the door beyond.
Perry was directly behind me as I threw it open. The
upper half was above the surface of the ground. With an
expression of surprise I turned and looked at Perry— it was
broad daylight without!

"Something seems to have gone wrong either with our
calculations or the chronometer," I said. Perry shook his
head— there was a strange expression in his eyes.

"Let's have a look beyond that door, David," he cried.

Together we stepped out to stand in silent contem-
plation of a landscape at once weird and beautiful. Before
us a low and level shore stretched down to a silent sea. As
far as the eye could reach the surface of the water was
dotted with countless tiny isles— some of towering, barren,
granitic rock— others resplendent in gorgeous trappings of
tropical vegetation, myriad starred with the magnificent
splendor of vivid blooms.

Behind us rose a dark and forbidding wood of giant ar-
borescent ferns intermingled with the commoner types of
a primeval tropical forest. Huge creepers depended in
great loops from tree to tree, dense underbrush overgrew
a tangled mass of fallen trunks and branches. Upon the
outer verge we could see the same splendid coloring of
countless blossoms that glorified the islands, but within
the dense shadows all seemed dark and gloomy as the
grave.

And upon all the noonday sun poured its torrid rays out
of a cloudless sky.

"Where on earth can we be?" I asked, turning to Perry.

For some moments the old man did not reply. He stood
with bowed head, buried in deep thought. But at last he
spoke.

16 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

"David," he said, "I am not so sure that we are on
earth."-

"What do you mean, Perry?" I cried. "Do you think
that we are dead, and that this is heaven?"

He smiled, and turning, pointed to the nose of the
prospector protruding from the ground at our backs.

"But for that, David, I might believe that we were in-
deed come to the country beyond the Styx. The prospec-
tor renders that theory untenable— it, certainly, could
never have gone to heaven. However I am wiUing to con-
cede that we actually may be in another world from that
which we have always known. If we are not on earth,
there is every reason to beheve that we may be in it."

"We may have quartered through the earth's crust and
come out upon some tropical island of the West Indies," I
suggested. Again Perry shook his head.

"Let us wait and see, David," he replied, "and in the
meantime suppose we do a bit of exploring up and down
the coast— we may find a native who can enhghten us."

As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and
earnestly across the water. Evidently he was wresthng
with a mighty problem.

"David," he said abruptly, "do you perceive anything
unusual about the horizon?"

As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the
strangeness of the landscape that had haunted me from
the first with an illusive suggestion of the bizarre and un-
natural—^/lere was no horizon! As far as the eye could
reach out the sea continued and upon its bosom floated
tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere specks;
but ever beyond them was the sea, until the impression
became quite real that one was looking up at the most
distant point that the eye could fathom— the distance was
lost in the distance. That was all— there was no clear-cut

Edgar Rice Burroughs 17

horizontal line marking the dip of the globe below the
hne of vision.

"A great hght is commencing to break on me," contin-
ued Perry, taking out his watch. "I believe that I have
partially solved the riddle. It is now two o'clock. When
we emerged from the prospector the sun was directly
above us. Where is it now?'*

I glanced up to find the great orb still motionless in the
center of the heavens. And such a sun! I had scarcely no-
ticed it before. Fully thrice the size of the sun I had
known throughout my life, and apparentiy so near that
the sight of it carried the conviction that one might al-
most reach up and touch it.

"My God, Perry, where are we?'* I exclaimed. **This
thing is beginning to get on my nerves."

"I think that I may state quite positively, David," he
commenced, "that we are—" but he got no further. From
behind us in the vicinity of the prospector there came the
most thunderous, awe-inspiring roar that ever had fallen
upon my ears. With one accord we turned to discover the
author of that fearsome noise.

Had I still retained the suspicion that we were on earth
the sight that met my eyes would quite entirely have
banished it. Emerging from the forest was a colossal beast
which closely resembled a bear. It was fully as large as
the largest elephant and with great forepaws armed with
huge claws. Its nose, or snout, depended nearly a foot
below its lower jaw, much after the manner of a rudimen-
tary trunk. The giant body was covered by a coat of thick,
shaggy hair.

Roaring horribly it came toward us at a ponderous,
shuffling trot. I turned toward Perry to suggest that it
might be wise to seek other surroundings— the idea had
evidently occurred to Perry previously, for he was already
a hundred paces away, and with each second his prodi-

18 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

gious bounds increased the distance. I had never guessed
what latent speed possibilities the old gentleman pos-
sessed.

I saw that he was headed toward a httle point of the
forest which ran out toward the sea not far from where
we had been standing, and as the mighty creature, the
sight of which had galvanized him into such remarkable
action, was forging steadily toward me I set off after
Perry, though at a somewhat more decorous pace. It was
evident that the massive beast pursuing us was not built
for speed, so all that I considered necessary was to gain
the trees sufficiently ahead of it to enable me to climb to
the safety of some great branch before it came up.

Notwithstanding our danger I could not help but laugh
at Perry's frantic capers as he essayed to gain the safety of
the lower branches of the trees he now had reached. The
stems were bare for a distance of some fifteen feet— at
least on those trees which Perry attempted to ascend, for
the suggestion of safety carried by the larger of the forest
giants had evidendy attracted him to them. A dozen
times he scrambled up the trunks Hke a huge cat only to
fall back to the ground once more, and with each failure
he cast a horrified glance over his shoulder at the oncom-
ing brute, simultaneously emitting terror-stricken shrieks
that awoke the echoes of the grim forest.

At length he spied a dangHng creeper about the bigness
of one's wrist, and when I reached the trees he was racing
madly up it, hand over hand. He had almost reached the
lowest branch of the tree from which the creeper de-
pended when the thing parted beneath his weight and he
fell sprawHng at my feet

The misfortune now was no longer amusing, for the
beast was already too close to us for comfort. Seizing
Perry by the shoulder I dragged him to his feet, and
rushing to a smaller tree— one that he could easily encircle

Edgar Rice Burroughs 19

with his arms and legs— I boosted him as far up as I could,
and then left him to his fate, for a glance over my shoul-
der revealed the awful beast almost upon me.

It was the great size of the thing alone that saved me.
Its enormous bulk rendered it too slow upon its feet to
cope with the agility of my young muscles, and so I was
enabled to dodge out of its way and run completely be-
hind it before its slow wits could direct it in pursuit.

The few seconds of grace that this gave me found me
safely lodged in the branches of a tree a few paces from
that in which Perry had at last found a haven.

Did I say safely lodged? At the time I thought we were
quite safe, and so did Perry. He was praying— raising his
voice in thanksgiving at our deliverance— and had just
completed a sort of paeon of gratitude that the thing
couldn't chmb a tree when without warning it reared up
beneath him on its enormous tail and hind feet, and
reached those fearfully armed paws quite to the branch
upon which he crouched.

The accompanying roar was all but drowned in Perry's
scream of fright, and he came near tumbling headlong
into the gaping jaws beneath him, so precipitate was his
impetuous haste to vacate the dangerous hmb. It was
with a deep sigh of rehef that I saw him gain a higher
branch in safety.

And then the brute did that which froze us both anew
with horror. Grasping the tree's stem with his powerful
paws he dragged down with all the great weight of his
huge bulk and all the irresistible force of those mighty
muscles. Slowly, but surely, the stem began to bend to-
ward him. Inch by inch he worked his paws upward as
the tree leaned more and more from the perpendicular.
Perry clung chattering in a panic of terror. Higher and
higher into the bending and swaying tree he clambered.

20 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

More and more rapidly was the tree top inclining toward
the ground.

I saw now why the great brute was armed with such
enormous paws. The use that he was putting them to was
precisely that for which nature had intended them. The
sloth-Hke creature was herbivorous, and to feed that
mighty carcass entire trees must be stripped of their foh-
age. The reason for its attacking us might easily be ac-
counted for on the supposition of an ugly disposition such
as that which the fierce and stupid rhinoceros of Africa
possesses. But these were later reflections. At the moment
I was too frantic with apprehension on Perry's behalf to
consider aught other than a means to save him from the
death that loomed so close.

Realizing that I could outdistance the clumsy brute in
the open, I dropped from my leafy sanctuary intent only
on distracting the thing's attention from Perry long
enough to enable the old man to gain the safety of a
larger tree. There were many close by which not even the
terrific strength of that titanic monster could bend.

As I touched the ground I snatched a broken limb from
the tangled mass that matted the jungle-Hke floor of the
forest and, leaping unnoticed behind the shaggy back,
dealt the brute a terrific blow. My plan worked like
magic. From the previous slowTiess of the beast I had
been led to look for no such marvelous agihty as he now
displayed. Releasing his hold upon the tree he dropped
on all-fours and at the same time sv^omg his great, v^cked
tail with a force that would have broken every bone in
my body had it struck me; but, fortunately, I had turned
to flee at the very instant that I felt my blow land upon
the towering back.

As it started in pursuit of me I made the mistake of
running along the edge of the forest rather than making
for the open beach. In a moment I was knee-deep in rot-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 21

ting vegetation, and the awful thing behind me was gain-
ing rapidly as I floundered and fell in my efforts to ex-
tricate myself.

A fallen log gave me an instant's advantage, for climb-
ing upon it I leaped to another a few paces farther on,
and in this way was able to keep clear of the mush that
carpeted the surrounding ground. But the zigzag course
that this necessitated was placing such a heavy handicap
upon me that my pursuer was steadily gaining upon me.

Suddenly from behind I heard a tiunult of howls, and
sharp, piercing barks— much the sound that a pack of
wolves raises when in full cry. Involuntarily I glanced
backward to discover the origin of this new and menacing
note with the result that I missed my footing and went
sprawling once more upon my face in the deep muck.

My mammoth enemy was so close by this time that I
knew I must feel the weiglit of one of his terrible paws
before I could rise, but to my surprise the blow did not
fall upon me. The howling and snapping and barking of
the new element which had been infused into the melee
now seemed centered quite close behind me, and as I
raised myself upon my hands and glanced around I saw
what it was that had distracted the dyryth, as I afterward
learned the thing is called, from my trail.

It was surrounded by a pack of some hundred wolflike
creatures— wild dogs they seemed— that rushed growling
and snapping in upon it from all sides, so that they sank
their white fangs into the slow brute and were away
again before it could reach them with its huge paws or
sweeping tail.

But these were not aU that my startled eyes perceived.
Chattering and gibbering through the lower branches of
the trees came a company of mardike creatures evidently
urging on the dog pack. They were to all appearances
strikingly similar in aspect to the Negro of Africa. Their

22 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

skins were very black, and their features much Hke those
of the more pronounced Negroid type except that the
head receded more rapidly above the eyes, leaving httle
or no forehead. Their arms were rather longer and their
legs shorter in proportion to the torso than in man, and
late I noticed that their great toes protruded at right an-
gles from their feet— because of their arboreal habits, I
presume. Behind them trailed long, slender tails which
they used in climbing quite as much as they did either
their hands or feet.

I had stumbled to my feet the moment that I discov-
ered that the wolf-dogs were holding the dyryth at bay.
At sight of me several of the savage creatures left off wor-
rying the great brute to come sHnking with bared fangs
toward me, and as I turned to run toward the trees again
to seek safety among the lower branches, I saw a ntmiber
of the man-apes leaping and chattering in the foHage of
the nearest tree.

Between them and the beasts behind me there was lit-
tle choice, but at least there was a doubt as to the recep-
tion these grotesque parodies on humanity would accord
me, while there was none as to the fate which awaited me
beneath the grinning fangs of my fierce pursuers.

And so I raced on toward the trees intending to pass
beneath that which held the man-things and take refuge
in another farther on; but the wolf-dogs were very close
behind me— so close that I had despaired of escaping
them, when one of the creatures in the tree above swung
down headforemost, his tail looped about a great limb,
and grasping me beneath my armpits swimg me in safety
up among his fellows.

There they fell to examining me with the utmost excite-
ment and curiosity. They picked at my clothing, my hair,
and my flesh. They turned me about to see if I had a tail,
and when they discovered that I was not so equipped

Edgar Rice Burroughs 23

they fell into roars of laughter. Their teeth were very
large and white and even, except for the upper canines
which were a trifle longer than the others— protruding just
a bit when the mouth was closed.

When they had examined me for a few moments one of
them discovered that my clothing was not a part of me,
with the result that garment by garment they tore it from
me amidst peals of the wildest laughter. ApeUke, they es-
sayed to don the apparel themselves, but their ingenuity
was not suflBcient to the task and so they gave it up.

In the meantime I had been straining my eyes to catch
a glimpse of Perry, but nowhere about could I see him, al-
though the clump of trees in which he had first taken ref-
uge was in full view. I was much exercised by fear that
something had befallen him, and though I called his
name aloud several times there was no response.

Tired at last of playing with my clothing the creatiu"es
threw it to the ground, and catching me, one on either
side, by an arm, started off at a most terrifying pace
through the tree tops. Never have I experienced such a
journey before or since— even now I oftentimes awake
from a deep sleep haunted by the horrid remembrance of
that awful experience.

From tree to tree the agile creatures sprang Hke flying
squirrels, while the cold sweat stood upon my brow as I
glimpsed the depths beneath, into which a single misstep
on the part of either of my bearers would hurl me. As
they bore me along, my mind was occupied vdth a thou-
sand bewildering thoughts. What had become of Perry?
Would I ever see him again? What were the intentions of
these half -human things into whose hands I had fallen?
Were they inhabitants of the same world into which I had
been bom? Nol It could not be. But yet where else? I had
not left that earth— of that I was sure. Still neither could I

24 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

reconcile tlie things which I had seen to a behef that I
was still in the world of my birth. With a sigh I gave it
up.

CHAPTER ni

A CHANGE OF MASTERS

We must have traveled several miles through the dark
and dismal wood when we came suddenly upon a dense
village built high among the branches of the trees. As we
approached it my escort broke into wild shouting which
was immediately answered from within, and a moment
later a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as
those who had captured me poured out to meet us. Again
I was the center of a wildly chattering horde. I was
pulled this way and that. Pinched, pounded, and
thumped until I was black and blue, yet I do not think
that their treatment was dictated by either cruelty or
malice— I was a curiosity, a freak, a new plaything, and
their childish minds required the added evidence of all
their senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.

Presently they dragged me within the village, which
consisted of several hundred rude shelters of boughs and
leaves supported upon the branches of the trees. Between
the huts, which sometimes formed crooked streets, were
dead branches and the trunks of small trees which con-
nected the huts upon one tree to those within adjoining
trees; the whole network of huts and pathways forming
an almost solid flooring a good fifty feet above the
ground.

I wondered why these agile creatures required con-
necting bridges between the trees, but later when I saw
the motley aggregation of half-savage beasts which they

Edgar Rice Burroughs 25

kept within their village I reahzed the necessity for the
pathways. There were a number of the same vicious wolf-
dogs which we had left worrying the dyryth, and many
goatlike animals whose distended udders explained the
reason for their presence.

My guard halted before one of the huts into which I
was pushed; then two of the creatures squatted down be-
fore the entrance— to prevent my escape, doubtless.
Though where I should have escaped to I certainly had
not the remotest conception. I had no more than entered
the dark shadows of the interior than there fell upon my
ears the tones of a famihar voice, in prayer.

"Perry 1" I cried. "Dear old Perry 1 Thank the Lord you
are safe."

"David! Can it be possible that you escaped?** And the
old man stumbled toward me and threw his arms about
me.

He had seen me fall before the dyryth, and then he had
been seized by a number of the ape-creatures and borne
through the tree tops to their village. His captors had
been as inquisitive as to his strange clothing as had mine,
with the same result. As we looked at each other we could
not help but laugh.

"With a tail, David," remarked Perry, "you would
make a very handsome ape."

"Maybe we can borrow a couple," I rejoined. **They
seem to be quite the thing this season. I wonder what the
creatures intend doing with us. Perry. They don*t seem re-
ally savage. What do you suppose they can be? You were
about to tell me where we are when that great hairy frig-
ate bore down upon us— have you really any idea at all?"

"Yes, David,** he repHed, "I know precisely where we
are. We have made a magnificent discovery, my boy! We
have proved that the earth is hollow. We have passed en-
tirely through its crust to the inner world."

16 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

"Perry, you are madl"

"Not at all, David. For two hundred and fifty miles our
prospector bore us through the crust beneath our outer
world. At that point it reached the center of gravity of the
five-hundred-mile-thick crust. Up to that point we had
been descending— direction is, of course, merely relative.
Then at the moment that our seats revolved— the thing
that made you beHeve that we had turned about and
were speeding upward— we passed the center of gravity
and, though we did not alter the direction of our progress,
yet we were in reality moving upward— toward the sur-
face of the inner world. Does not the strange fauna and
flora which we have seen convince you that you are not in
the world of yom: birth? And the horizon— could it present
the strange aspect which we both noted unless we were
indeed standing upon the inside surface of a sphere?"

"But the sun. Perry!" I urged. "How in the world can
the sun shine through five hundred miles of soHd crust?"

"It is not the sun of the outer world that we see here. It
is another sun— an entirely different sun— that casts its
eternal noonday effulgence upon the face of the inner
world. Look at it now, David— ff you can see it from the
doorway of this hut— and you wiU see that it is still in the
exact center of the heavens. We have been here for many
hours— yet it is still noon.

"And withal it is very simple, David. The earth was
once a nebulous mass. It cooled, and as it cooled it
shrank. At length a thin crust of sohd matter formed upon
its outer surface— a sort of shell; but within it was par-
tially molten matter and highly expanded gases. As it con-
tinued to cool, what happened? Centrifugal force hurled
the particles of the nebulous center toward the crust as
rapidly as they approached a soHd state. You have seen
the same principle practically apphed in the modem
cream separator. Presently there was only a small super-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 27

heated core of gaseous matter remaining within a huge
vacant interior left by the contraction of the coohng
gases. The equal attraction of the sohd crust from all di-
rections maintained this luminous core in the exact center
of the hollow globe. What remains of it is the sun you saw
today— a relatively tiny thing at the exact center of the
earth. Equally to every part of this inner world it diffuses
its perpetual noonday Hght and torrid heat.

'This inner world must have cooled sufficiently to sup-
port animal life long ages after life appeared upon the
outer crust, but that the same agencies were at work here
is evident from the similar forms of both animal and vege-
table creation which we have already seen. Take the
great beast which attacked us, for example. Unques-
tionably a counterpart of the Megatherium of the post-
Phocene period of the outer crust, whose fossilized skele-
ton has been found in South America."

"But the grotesque inhabitants of this forest?** I urged.
"Surely they have no counterpart in the earth's history.**

"Who can tell?'* he rejoined. "They may constitute the
link between ape and man, all traces of which have been
swallowed by the countless convulsions which have
racked the outer crust, or they may be merely the result
of evolution along sHghtly different lines— either is quite
possible.'*

Further speculation was interrupted by the appearance
of several of our captors before the entrance of the hut.
Two of them entered and dragged us forth. The perilous
pathways and the surrounding trees were filled with the
black ape-men, their females, and their young. There was
not an ornament, a weapon, or a garment among the lot.

"Quite low in the scale of creation,** commented Perry.

"Quite high enough to play the deuce with us, though,**
I rephed. "Now what do you suppose they intend doing
with us?'*

28 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

We were not long in learning. As on the occasion of our
trip to the village we were seized by a couple of the pow-
erful creatures and whirled away through the tree tops,
while about us and in our wake raced a chattering, jibber-
ing, grinning horde of sleek, black ape-things.

Twice my bearers missed their footing, and my heart
ceased beating as we plunged toward instant death
among the tangled deadwood beneath. But on both occa-
sions those hthe, powerful tails reached out and found
sustaining branches, nor did either of the creatures loosen
their grasp upon me. In fact, it seemed that the incidents
were of no greater moment to them than would be the
stubbing of one's toe at a street crossing in the outer
world— they but laughed uproariously and sped on with
me.

For some time they continued through the forest— how
long I could not guess for I was learning, what was later
borne very forcefully to my mind, that time ceases to be a
factor the moment means for measuring it cease to exist.
Our watches were gone, and we were hving beneath a
stationary sun. Already I was puzzled to compute the pe-
riod of time which had elapsed since we broke through
the crust of the inner world. It might be hours, or it might
be days— who in the world could teU where it was always
noon I By the sun, no time had elapsed— but my judgment
told me that we must have been several hours in this
strange world.

Presently the forest terminated, and we came out upon
a level plain. A short distance before us rose a few low,
rocky hiUs. Toward these our captors urged us, and after
a short time led us through a narrow pass into a tiny, cir-
cular vaUey. Here they got down to work, and we were
soon convinced that if we were not to die to make a
Roman hoHday, we were to die for some other purpose.
The attitude of our captors altered inmiediately they en-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 29

tered the natural arena within the rocky hills. Their
laughter ceased. Grim ferocity marked their bestial faces
—bared fangs menaced us.

We were placed in the center of the amphitheater— the
thousand creatures forming a great ring about us. Then a
wolf-dog was hrougtit—hyaenodon Perry called it— and
turned loose with us inside the circle. The thing's body
was as large as that of a full-grown mastiff, its legs were
short and powerful, and its jaws broad and strong. Dark,
shaggy hair covered its back and sides, while its breast
and belly were quite white. As it slunk toward us it pre-
sented a most formidable aspect with its upcurled hps
baring its mighty fangs.

Perry was on his knees, praying. I stooped and picked
up a small stone. At my movement the beast veered off a
bit and commenced circHng us. Evidently it had been a
target for stones before. The ape-things were dancing up
and down urging the brute on with savage cries, until at
last, seeing that I did not throw, he charged us.

At Andover, and later at Yale, I had pitched on win-
ning ball teams. My speed and control must both have
been above the ordinary, for I made such a record during
my senior year at college that overtures were made to me
in behalf of one of the great major-league teams; but in
the tightest pitch that ever had confronted me in the past
I had never been in such need for control as now.

As I wound up for the dehvery, I held my nerves and
muscles under absolute command, though the grinning
jaws were hurtling toward me at terrific speed. And then
I let go, with every ounce of my weight and muscle and
science back of that throw. The stone caught the hyaeno-
don full upon the end of the nose, and sent him bowhng
over upon his back.

At the same instant a chorus of shrieks and howls arose
from the circle of spectators, so that for a moment I

30 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

thought that the upsetting of their champion was the
cause; but in this I soon saw that I was mistaken. As I
looked, the ape-things broke in all directions toward the
surrounding hills, and then I distinguished the real cause
of their perturbation. Behind them, streaming through
the pass which leads into the valley, came a swarm of
hairy men—gorilla-hke creatures armed with spears and
hatchets, and bearing long, oval shields.

Like demons they set upon the ape-things, and before
them the hyaenodon, which had now regained its senses
and its feet, fled howUng with fright. Past us swept the
pursued and the pursuers, nor did the hairy ones accord
us more than a passing glance until the arena had been
emptied of its former occupants. Then they returned to
us, and one who seemed to have authority among them
directed that we be brought with them.

When we had passed out of the amphitheater onto the
great plain we saw a caravan of men and women— human
beings like ourselves— and for the first time hope and re-
hef filled my heart, until I could have cried out in the ex-
uberance of my happiness. It is true that they were a half-
naked, wild-appearing aggregation; but they at least were
fashioned along the same hues as ourselves— there was
nothing grotesque or horrible about them as about the
other creatures in this strange, weird world.

But as we came closer, our hearts sank once more, for
we discovered that the poor wretches were chained neck
to neck in a long Hne, and that the gorilla-men were their
guards. With Httle ceremony Perry and I were chained at
the end of the hne, and without further ado the inter-
rupted march was resumed.

Up to this time the excitement had kept us both up; but
now the tiresome monotony of the long march across the
sun-baked plain brought on all the agonies consequent to
long-denied sleep. On and on we stumbled beneath that

Edgar Rice Burroughs 31

hateful noonday sun. If we fell we were prodded with a
sharp point. Our companions in chains did not stumble.
They strode along proudly erect. Occasionally they would
exchange words with one another in a monosyllabic lan-
guage. They were a noble-appearing race with weU-
formed heads and perfect physiques. The men were heav-
ily bearded, tall and muscular; the women, smaller and
more gracefully molded, with great masses of raven hair
caught into loose knots upon their heads. The features of
both sexes were well proportioned— there was not a face
among them that would have been called even plain if
judged by earthly standards. They wore no ornaments;
but this I later learned was due to the fact that their cap-
tors had stripped them of everything of value. As garmen-
ture the women possessed a single robe of some Hght-
colored, spotted hide, rather similar in appearance to a
leopard's skin. This they wore either supported entirely
about the waist by a leathern thong, so that it hung par-
tially below the knee on one side, or possibly looped
gracefully across one shoulder. Their feet were shod with
skin sandals. The men wore loin cloths of the hide of
some shaggy beast, long ends of which depended before
and behind nearly to the ground. In some instances these
ends were finished with the strong talons of the beast
from which the hides had been taken.

Our guards, whom I already have described as gorilla-
like men, were rather hghter in build than a gorilla, but
even so they were indeed mighty creatures. Their arms
and legs were proportioned more in conformity with
human standards, but their entire bodies were covered
with shaggy, brown hair, and their faces were quite as
brutal as those of the few stuffed specimens of the gorilla
which I had seen in the museums at home.

Their only redeeming feature lay in the development of
the head above and back of the ears. In this respect they

32 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

were not one whit less human than we. They were
clothed in a sort of tunic of Hght cloth which reached to
the knees. Beneath this they wore only a loin cloth of the
same material, while their feet were shod with rather
heavy sandals apparently made of the thick hide of some
mammoth creature of this inner world.

Their arms and necks were encircled by many orna-
ments of metal— silver predominating— and on their tunics
were sewoi the heads of tiny reptiles in odd and rather ar-
tistic designs. They talked among themselves as they
marched along on either side of us, but in a language
which I perceived differed from that employed by our
fellow prisoners. When they addressed the latter they
used what appeared to be a third language, and which I
later learned in a mongrel tongue rather analogous to the
Pidgin-Enghsh of the Chinese cooHe.

How far we marched I have no conception, nor has
Perry. Both of us were asleep much of the time for hours
before a halt was called— then we dropped in our tracks. I
say "for hours;" but how may one measure time where
time does not existl When our march commenced the sun
stood at zenith, when we halted our shadows still pointed
toward nadir. Whether an instant or an eternity of earthly
time elapsed who may say. That march may have occu-
pied nine years and eleven months of the ten years that I
spent in the inner world, or it may have been accom-
phshed in the fraction of a second— I cannot tell. But this
I do know that since you have told me that ten years have
elapsed since I departed from this earth I have lost all re-
spect for time— I am commencing to doubt that such a
thing exists other than in the weak, finite mind of man.

CHAPTER IV

DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL

When our guards aroused us from sleep we were much
refreshed. They gave us food. Strips of dried meat it was,
but it put new life and strength into us, so that now we
too marched with high-held heads, and took noble strides.
At least I did, for I was young and proud; but poor Perry
hated walking. On earth I had often seen him call a cab
to travel a square— he was paying for it now, and his old
legs wobbled so that I put my arm about him and half
carried him through the balance of those frightful
marches.

The country began to change at last, and we wound up
out of the level plain through mighty mountains of virgin
granite. The tropical verdure of the lowlands was re-
placed by hardier vegetation, but even here the effects of
constant heat and light were apparent in the immensity of
the trees and the profusion of foHage and blooms. Crystal
streams roared through their rocky channels, fed by the
perpetual snows which we could see far above us. Above
the snowcapped heights hung masses of heavy clouds. It
was these. Perry explained, which evidently served the
double purpose of replenishing the melting snows and
protecting them from the direct rays of the sun.

By this time we had picked up a smattering of the bas-
tard language in which our guards addressed us, as well
as making good headway in the rather charming tongue
of our co-captives. Directly ahead of me in the chain gang
was a young woman. Three feet of chain linked us to-
gether in a forced companionship which I, at least, soon
rejoiced in. For I found her a willing teacher, and from

34 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

her I learned the language of her tribe, and much of the
hfe and customs of the inner world— at least that part of it
with which she was famihar.

She told me that she was called Dian the Beautiful, and
that she belonged to the tribe of Amoz, which dwells in
the cliffs above the Darel Az, or shallow sea.

"How came you here?" I asked her.

"I was running away from Jubal the Ugly One," she an-
swered, as though that was explanation quite sufficient.

"Who is Jubal the Ugly One?" I asked. "And why did
you run away from him?"

She looked at me in surprise.

"Why does a woman run away from a man?" She an-
swered my question with another.

"They do not, where I come from," I rephed. "Some-
times they run after them."

But she could not understand. Nor could I get her to
grasp the fact that I was of another world. She was quite
as positive that creation was originated solely to produce
her own kind and the world she Hved in as are many of
the outer world.

"But Jubal," I insisted. "Tell me about him, and why
you ran away to be chained by the neck and scourged
across the face of a world."

"Jubal the Ugly One placed his trophy before my fa-
ther s house. It was the head of a mighty tandor. It re-
mained there and no greater trophy was placed beside it.
So I knew that Jubal the Ugly One would come and take
me as his mate. None other so powerful wished me, or
they would have slain a mightier beast and thus have won
me from Jubal. My father is not a mighty hunter. Once he
was, but a sadok tossed him, and never again had he the
full use of his right arm. My brother, Dacor the Strong
One, had gone to the land of Sari to steal a mate for him-
self. Thus there was none, father, brother, or lover, to

Edgar Rice Burroughs 35

save me from Jubal the Ugly One, and I ran away and hid
among the hills that skirt the land of Amoz. And there
these Sagoths found me and made me captive."

"What will they do with you?" I asked. "Wliere are
they taking us?"

Again she looked her increduhty.

"I can almost beheve that you are of another world,"
she said, "for otherwise such ignorance were inexpHcable.
Do you really mean that you do not know that the Sa-
goths are the creatures of the Mahars— the mighty Mahars
who think that they own Pellucidar and all that walks or
grows upon its surface, or creeps or burrows beneath, or
swims within its lakes and oceans, or flies through its air?
Next you will be teUing me that you never before heard
of the Mahars 1"

I was loath to do it, and further incur her scorn; but
there was no alternative if I were to absorb knowledge, so
I made a clean breast of my pitiful ignorance as to the
mighty Mahars. She was shocked. But she did her very
best to enhghten me, though much that she said was as
Greek would have been to her. She described the Mahars
largely by comparisons. In this way they were Hke unto
thipdarSy in that to the hairless lidi.

About all I gleaned of them was that they were quite
hideous, had wings, and webbed feet; lived in cities built
beneath the ground; could swim under water for great
distances, and were very, very wise. The Sagoths were
their weapons of offense and defense, and the races Hke
herself were their hands and feet— they were the slaves
and servants who did all the manual labor. The Mahars
were the heads— the brains— of the inner world. I longed
to see this wondrous race of supermen.

Perr>' learned the language with me. When we halted,
as we occasionally did, though sometimes the halts
seemed ages apart, he would join in the conversation, as

36 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

would Ghak the Hairy One, he who was chained just
ahead of Dian the Beautiful. Ahead of Ghak was Hooja
the Sly One. He too entered the conversation occa-
sionally. Most of his remarks were directed toward Dian
the Beautiful. It didn't take half an eye to see that he had
developed a bad case; but the girl appeared totally obhvi-
ous to his thinly veiled advances. Did I say thinly veiled?
There is a race of men in New Zealand, or Austraha, I
have forgotten which, who indicate their preference for
the lady of their aflFections by banging her over the head
with a bludgeon. By comparison with this method Hooja's
lovemaking might be called thinly veiled. At first it
caused me to blush violently although I have seen several
Old Years out at Rectors, and in other less fashionable
places oflF Broadway, and in Vienna, and Hamburg.

But the girll She was magnificent. It was easy to see
that she considered herselE as entirely above and apart
from her present surroundings and company. She talked
with me, and with Perry, and with the taciturn Ghak be-
cause we were respectful; but she couldn't even see Hooja
the Sly One, much less hear him, and that made him furi-
ous. He tried to get one of the Sagoths to move the girl up
ahead of him in the slave gang, but the fellow only poked
him with his spear and told him that he had selected the
girl for his own property— that he would buy her from the
Mahars as soon as they reached Phutra. Phutra, it
seemed, was the city of our destination.

After passing over the first chain of mountains we
skirted a salt sea, upon whose bosom swam countiess hor-
rid things. Seal-like creatures there were with long necks
stretching ten and more feet above their enormous bod-
ies, and whose snake heads were spUt with gaping mouths
bristhng with countless fangs. There were huge tortoises
too, paddhng about among these other reptiles, which

Edgar Rice Burroughs 37

Perry said were Plesiosaurs of the Lias. I didn^t question
his veracity— they might have been most anything.

Dian told me they were tandorazes, or tandors of the
sea, and that the other, and more fearsome reptiles, which
occasionally rose from the deep to do battle with them,
were azdyryths, or sea-dyryths— Perry called them Ich-
thyosaurs. They resembled a whale with the head of an
alligator.

I had forgotten what httle geology I had studied at
school— about all that remained was an impression of hor-
ror that the illustrations of restored prehistoric monsters
had made upon me, and a well-defined behef that any
man with a pig's shank and a vivid imagination could "re-
store" most any sort of paleohthic monster he saw fit, and
take rank as a first class paleontologist. But when I saw
these sleek, shiny carcasses shimmering in the sunlight as
they emerged from the ocean, shaking their giant heads;
when I saw the waters roll from their sinuous bodies in
miniature waterfalls as they ghded hither and thither,
now upon the surface, now half submerged; as I saw
them meet, open-mouthed, hissing and snorting, in their
titanic and interminable warring I reahzed how futile is
man s poor, weak imagination by comparison with Na-
ture's incredible genius.

And Perryl He was absolutely flabbergasted. He said so
himself.

"David," he remarked, after we had marched for a long
time beside that awful sea. "David, I used to teach geol-
ogy, and I thought that I befieved what I taught; but now
I see that I did not beheve it— that it is impossible for man
to beheve such things as these unless he sees them with
his own eyes. We take things for granted, perhaps, be-
cause we are told them over and over again, and have no
way of disproving them— hke religions, for example; but
we don't beheve them, we only think we do. If you ever

38 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

get back to the outer world you will find that the geolo-
gists and paleontologists will be the first to set you down
a liar, for they know that no such creatures as they restore
ever existed. It is all right to imagine them as existing in
an equally imaginary epoch— but now? poof I"

At the next halt Hooja the Sly One managed to find
enough slack chain to permit him to worm himself back
quite close to Dian. We were all standing, and as he
edged near the girl she turned her back upon him in such
a truly earthly feminine manner that I could scarce
repress a smile; but it was a short-Hved smile for on the
instant the Sly One's hand fell upon the girl's bare arm,
jerking her roughly toward him.

I was not then famifiar with the customs or social ethics
which prevailed within Pellucidar; but even so I did not
need the appealing look which the girl shot at me from
her magnificent eyes to influence my subsequent act
What the Sly One's intention was I paused not to inquire;
but instead, before he could lay hold of her with his other
hand, I placed a right to the point of his jaw that felled
him in his tracks.

A roar of approval went up from those of the other pris-
oners and the Sagoths who had witnessed the brief
drama; not, as I later learned, because I had championed
the girl, but for the neat and, to them, astounding method
by which I had bested Hooja.

And the girl? At first she looked at me with wide, won-
dering eyes, and then she dropped her head, her face half
averted, and a dehcate flush suflFused her cheek. For a
moment she stood thus in silence, and then her head went
high, and she turned her back upon me as she had upon
Hooja. Some of the prisoners laughed, and I saw the face
of Ghak the Hairy One go very black as he looked at me
searchingly. And what I could see of Dian's cheek went
suddenly from red to white.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 39

Immediately after we resumed the march, and though I
reahzed that in some way I had offended Dian the Beau-
tiful I could not prevail upon her to talk with me that I
might learn wherein I had erred— in fact I might quite as
well have been addressing a sphinx for all the attention I
got. At last my own fooHsh pride stepped in and pre-
vented my making any further attempts, and thus a com-
panionship that without my reahzing it had come to mean
a great deal to me was cut off. Thereafter I confined my
conversation to Perry. Hooja did not renew his advances
toward the girl, nor did he again venture near me.

Again the weary and apparently interminable marching
became a perfect nightmare of horrors to me. The more
firmly fixed became the reahzation that the girl's friend-
ship had meant so much to me, the more I came to miss
it; and the more impregnable the barrier of silly pride.
But I was very young and would not ask Ghak for the ex-
planation which I was sure he could give, and that might
have made everything all right again.

On the march, or during halts, Dian refused consis-
tently to notice me— when her eyes wandered in my direc-
tion she looked either over my head or directly through
me. At last I became desperate, and determined to swal-
low my self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how I
had offended, and how I might make reparation. I made
up my mind that I should do this at the next halt. We
were approaching another range of mountains at the
time, and when we reached them, instead of winding
across them through some high-flung pass we entered a
mighty natural tunnel— a series of labyrinthine grottoes,
dark as Erebus.

The guards had no torches or hght of any description.
In fact we had seen no artificial fight or sign of fire since
we had entered Pellucidar. In a land of perpetual noon
there is no need of fight above ground, yet I marveled

40 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

that they had no means of lighting their way through
these dark, subterranean passages. So we crept along at a
snail's pace, with much stumbHng and falhng— the guards
keeping up a singsong chant ahead of us, interspersed
with certain high notes which I found always indicated
rough places and turns.

Halts were now more frequent, but I did not wish to
speak to Dian until I could see from the expression of her
face how she was receiving my apologies. At last a faint
glow ahead forewarned us of the end of the tunnel, for
which I for one was devoutly thankful. Then at a sudden
turn we emerged into the full hght of the noonday sun.

But with it came a sudden reaUzation of what meant to
me a real catastrophe—Dian was gone, and with her a
half-dozen other prisoners. The guards saw it too, and the
ferocity of their rage was terrible to behold. Their awe-
some, bestial faces were contorted in the most diabohcal
expressions, as they accused each other of responsibihty
for the loss. Finally they fell upon us, beating us with
their spear shafts, and hatchets. They had already killed
two near the head of the hne, and were Hke to have
finished the balance of us when their leader finally put a
stop to the brutal slaughter. Never in all my life had I
witnessed a more horrible exhibition of bestial rage— I
thanked God that Dian had not been one of those left to
endure it.

Of the twelve prisoners who had been chained ahead of
me each alternate one had been freed commencing with
Dian. Hooja was gone. Ghak remained. What could it
mean? How had it been accompHshed? The commander
of the guards was investigating. Soon he discovered that
the rude locks which had held the neckbands in place had
been deftly picked.

**Hooja the Sly One," murmured Ghak, who was now

Edgar Rice Burroughs 41

next to me in line. "He has taken the girl that you would
not have,*' he continued, glancing at me.

'That I would not havel" 1 cried. "What do you
mean?"

He looked at me closely for a moment.

T have doubted your story that you are from another
world," he said at last, 'TDut yet upon no other grounds
could your ignorance of the ways of Pellucidar be ex-
plained. Do you really mean that you do not know that
you oflPended the Beautiful One, and how?"

T do not know, Ghak," I replied.

"Then shall I tell you. When a man of Pellucidar inter-
venes between another man and the woman the other
man would have, the woman belongs to the victor. Dian
the Beautiful belongs to you. You should have claimed
her or released her. Had you taken her hand, it would
have indicated your desire to make her your mate, and
had you raised her hand above her head and then
dropped it, it would have meant that you did not wish her
for a mate and that you released her from all obligation to
you. By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest
aflPront that a man may put upon a woman. Now she is
yoiu: slave. No man will take her as mate, or may take her
honorably, until he shall have overcome you in combat,
and men do not choose slave women as their mates— at
least not the men of Pellucidar."

T did not know, Ghak," I cried. T did not know. Not
for all Pellucidar would I have harmed Dian the Beautiful
by word, or look, or act of mine. I do not want her as my
slave. I do not want her as my—" but here I stopped. The
vision of that sweet and innocent face floated before me
amidst the soft mists of imagination, and where I had on
the second beheved that I clung only to the memory of a
gentle friendship I had lost, yet now it seemed that it
would have been disloyalty to her to have said that I did

42 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

not want Dian the Beautiful as my mate. I had not
thought of her except as a welcome friend in a strange,
cruel world. Even now I did not think that I loved her.

I beheve Ghak must have read the truth more in my ex-
pression than in my words, for presently he laid his hand
upon my shoulder.

**Man of another world," he said, "I beheve you. Lips
may he, but when the heart speaks through the eyes it
tells only the truth. Your heart has spoken to me. I know
now that you meant no aflFront to Dian the Beautiful. She
is not of my tribe; but her mother is my sister. She does
not know it— her mother was stolen by Dian's father who
came with many others of the tribe of Amoz to battle
with us for our women— the most beautiful women of
Pellucidar. Then was her father king of Amoz, and her
mother was daughter of the king of Sari— to whose power
I, his son, have succeeded. Dian is the daughter of kings,
though her father is no longer king since the sadok tossed
him and Jubal the Ugly One wrested his kingship from
him. Because of her hneage the wrong you did her was
greatly magnified in the eyes of all who saw it. She will
never forgive you."

I asked Ghak if there was not some way in which I
could release the girl from the bondage and ignominy I
had unwittingly placed upon her.

"If ever you find her, yes," he answered. "Merely to
raise her hand above her head and drop it in the presence
of others is suflBcient to release her; but how may you ever
find her, you who are doomed to a life of slavery yourself
in the buried city of Phutra?"

"Is there no escape?" I asked.

"Hooja the Sly One escaped and took the others with
him," rephed Ghak. "But there are no more dark places
on the way to Phutra, and once there it is not so easy— the
Mahars are very wise. Even if one escaped from Phutra

Edgar Rice Burroughs 43

there are the thipdars— they would find you, and then—"
the Hairy One shuddered. "No, you will never escape the
Mahars."

It was a cheerful prospect. I asked Perry what he
thought about it; but he only shrugged his shoulders and
continued a longwinded prayer he had been at for some
time. He was wont to say that the only redeeming feature
of our captivity was the ample time it gave him for the
improvisation of prayers— it was becoming an obsession
vdth him. The Sagoths had begun to take notice of his
habit of declaiming throughout entire marches. One of
them asked him what he was saying— to whom he was
talking. The question gave me an idea, so I answered
quickly before Perry could say anything.

"Do not interrupt him," I said. "He is a very holy man
in the world from which we come. He is speaking to
spirits which you cannot see— do not interrupt him or they
will spring out of the air upon you and rend you limb
from hmb— hke that," and I jumped toward the great
brute with a loud "Bool" that sent him stimibhng back-
ward.

I took a long chance, I reahzed, but if we could make
any capital out of Perry's harmless mania I wanted to
make it while the making was prime. It worked splen-
didly. The Sagoths treated us both with marked respect
during the balance of the journey, and then passed the
word along to their masters, the Mahars.

Two marches after this episode we came to the city of
Phutra. The entrance to it was marked by two lofty
towers of granite, which guarded a flight of steps leading
to the buried city. Sagoths were on guard here as well as
at a hundred or more other towers scattered about over a
large plain.

CHAPTER V

SLAVES

As WE descended the broad staircase which led to the
main avenue of Phutra I caught my first sight of the dom-
inant race of the inner world. Involuntarily I shrank back
as one of the creatures approached to inspect us. A more
hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine. The all-
powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles, some
six or eight feet in length, with long narrow heads and
great round eyes. Their beaklike mouths are Hned v^th
sharp, white fangs, and the backs of their huge, Hzard
bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their necks to
the end of their long tails. Their feet are equipped with
three webbed toes, while from the fore feet membranous
vdngs, which are attached to their bodies just in front of
the hind legs, protrude at an angle of 45 degrees toward
the rear, ending in sharp points several feet above their
bodies.

I glanced at Perry as the thing passed me to inspect
him. The old man was gazing at the horrid creature with
wide astonished eyes. When it passed on, he turned to
me.

"A rhamphorhynchus of the Middle Ohtic, David,*' he
said, *T3ut, gad, how enormous 1 The largest remains we
ever have discovered have never indicated a size greater
than that attained by an ordinary crow."

As we continued on through the main avenue of Phutra
we saw many thousand of the creatures coming and going
upon their daily duties. They paid but Httle attention to
us. Phutra is laid out underground with a regularity that
indicates remarkable engineering skill. It is hewn from
sohd hmestone strata. The streets are broad and of a uni-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 45

form height of twenty feet. At intervals tubes pierce the
roof of this underground city, and by means of lenses and
reflectors transmit the sunhght, softened and diflFused, to
dispel what would otherwise be Cimmerian darkness. In
like manner air is introduced.

Perry and I were taken, with Ghak, to a large pubhc
building, where one of the Sagoths who had formed our
guard explained to a Maharan official the circumstances
surrounding our capture. The method of conmiunication
between these two was remarkable in that no spoken
words were exchanged. They employed a species of sign
language. As I was to learn later, the Mahars have no
ears, nor any spoken language. Among themselves they
communicate by means of what Perry says must be a
sixth sense which is cognizant of a fourth dimension.

I never did quite grasp him, though he endeavored to
explain it to me upon nimierous occasions. I suggested te-
lepathy, but he said no, that it was not telepathy since
they could only communicate when in each other s pres-
ence, nor could they talk with the Sagoths or the other in-
habitants of Pellucidar by the same method they used to
converse with one another.

'What they do," said Perry, "is to project their
thoughts into the fourth dimension, when they become
appreciable to the sixth sense of their Hstener. Do I make
myself quite clear?"

"You do not. Perry," I repHed. He shook his head in de-
spair, and returned to his work. They had set us to carry-
ing a great accumulation of Maharan literature from one
apartment to another, and there arranging it upon
shelves. I suggested to Perry that we were in the pubhc h-
brary of Phutra, but later, as he commenced to discover
the key to their written language, he assured me that we
were handhng the ancient archives of the race.

During this period my thoughts were continually upon

46 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Dian the Beautiful. I was, of course, glad that she had es-
caped the Mahars, and the fate that had been suggested
by the Sagoth who had threatened to purchase her upon
our arrival at Phutra. I often wondered if the httle party
of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who had
returned to search for them. Sometimes I was not so sure
but that I should have been more contented to know that
Dian was here in Phutra, than to think of her at the
mercy of Hooja the Sly One.

Ghak, Perry, and I often talked together of possible es-
cape, but the Sarian was so steeped in his lifelong behef
that no one could escape from the Mahars except by a
miracle, that he was not much aid to us— his attitude was
of one who waits for the miracle to come to him.

At my suggestion Perry and I fashioned some swords of
scraps of iron which we discovered among some rubbish
in the cells where we slept, for we were permitted almost
unrestrained freedom of action within the limits of the
building to which we had been assigned. So great were
the mmiber of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants of
Phutra that none of us was apt to be overburdened with
work, nor were our masters unkind to us.

We hid our new weapons beneath the skins which
formed our beds, and then Perry conceived the idea of
making bows and arrows— weapons apparently unknown
within Pellucidar. Next came shields; but these I found it
easier to steal from the walls of the outer guardroom of
the building.

We had completed these arrangements for our protec-
tion after leaving Phutra when the Sagoths who had been
sent to recapture the escaped prisoners returned with four
of them, of whom Hooja was one. Dian and two others
had eluded them. It so happened that Hooja was confined
in the same building with us. He told Ghak that he had
not seen Dian or the others after releasing them vdthin

Edgar Rice Burroughs 47

the dark grotto. What had become of them he had not the
faintest conception— they might be wandering yet, lost
within the labyrinthine timnel, if not dead from starva-
tion.

I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate of
Dian, and at this time, I imagine, came the first realiza-
tion that my affection for the girl might be prompted by
more than friendship. During my waking hours she was
constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when I slept
her dear face haunted my dreams. More than ever was I
determined to escape the Mahars.

Terry," I confided to the old man, ''if I have to search
every inch of this diminutive world I am going to find
Dian the Beautiful and right the wrong I unintentionally
did her." That was the excuse I made for Perry's benefit.

"Diminutive world 1" he scoffed. "You don t know what
you are talking about, my boy," and then he showed me a
map of Pellucidar which he had recently discovered
among the manuscript he was arranging.

"Look," he cried, pointing to it, "this is evidently
water, and all this land. Do you notice the general
configuration of the two areas? Where the oceans are
upon the outer crust, is land here. These relatively small
areas of ocean follow the general lines of the continents of
the outer world.

"We know that the crust of the globe is 500 miles in
thickness; then the inside diameter of Pellucidar must be
7,000 miles, and the superficial area 165,480,000 square
miles. Three-fourths of this is land. Think of itl A land
area of 124,110,000 square miles! Our own world con-
tains but 53,000,000 square miles of land, the balance
of its surface being covered by water. Just as we of-
ten compare nations by their relative land areas, so if
we compare these two worlds in the same way we have

48 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller
one I

"Where within vast Pellucidar would you search for
your Dian? Without stars, or moon, or changing sun how
could you find her even though you knew where she
might be found?"

The proposition was a corker. It quite took my breath
away; but I found that it left me all the more determined
to attempt it.

**If Ghak will accompany us we may be able to do it," I
suggested.

Perry and I sought him out and put the question
straight to him.

"Ghak," I said, "we are determined to escape from this
bondage. Will you accompany us?"

"They will set the thipdars upon us," he said, "and
then we shall be killed; but—" he hesitated— "I would
take the chance if I thought that I might possibly escape
and return to my own people."

"Could you find your way back to your own land?"
asked Perry. "And could you aid David in his search for
Dian?"

"Yes."

"But how," persisted Perry, "could you travel to
strange country without heavenly bodies or a compass to
guide you?"

Ghak didn t know what Perry meant by heavenly bod-
ies or a compass, but he assured us that you might bHnd-
fold any man of Pellucidar and carry him to the farther-
most comer of the world, yet he would be able to come
directly to his ovm home again by the shortest route. He
seemed surprised to think that we found anything won-
derful in it. Perry said it must be some sort of homing in-
stinct such as is possessed by certain breeds of earthly pi-
geons. I didn't know, of course, but it gave me an idea.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 49

"Then Dian could have found her way directly to her
own people?** I asked.

**Surely,** replied Ghak, "unless some mighty beast of
prey killed her.**

I was for making the attempted escape at once, but
both Perry and Ghak counseled waiting for some propi-
tious accident which would insure us some small degree
of success. I didn't see what accident could befall a whole
community in a land of perpetual dayhght where the in-
habitants had no fixed habits of sleep. Why, I am sure
that some of the Mahars never sleep, while others may, at
long intervals, crawl into the dark recesses beneath their
dweUings and curl up in protracted slumber. Perry says
that if a Mahar stays awake for three years he will make
up all his lost sleep in a long year's snooze. That may be
all true, but I never saw but three of them asleep, and it
was the sight of these three that gave me a suggestion for
our means of escape.

I had been searching about far below the levels that we
slaves were supposed to frequent— possibly fifty feet be-
neath the main floor of the building— among a network of
corridors and apartments, when I came suddenly upon
three Mahars curled up upon a bed of skins. At first I
thought they were dead, but later their regular breathing
convinced me of my error. Like a flash the thought came
to me of the marvelous opportunity these sleeping reptiles
oflFered as a means of eluding the watchfulness of our cap-
tors and the Sagoth guards.

Hastening back to Perry where he pored over a musty
pile of, to me, meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained my
plan to him. To my surprise he was horrified.

"It would be murder, David,** he cried.

"Murder to kill a reptihan monster?*' I asked in as-
tonishment.

50 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

"Here they are not monsters, David," he replied. "Here
they are the dominant race~we are the 'monsters*— the
lower orders. In Pellucidar evolution has progressed along
different hnes than upon the outer earth. These terrible
convulsions of nature time and time again wiped out the
existing species— but for this fact some monster of the
Saurozoic epoch might rule today upon our own world.
We see here what might well have occurred in our own
history had conditions been what they have been here.

"Life within Pellucidar is far younger than upon the
outer crust. Here man has but reached a stage analogous
to the Stone Age of our own world's history, but for
countless milHons of years these reptiles have been
progressing. Possibly it is the sixth sense which I am sure
they possess that has given them an advantage over the
other and more frightfully armed of their fellows; but this
we may never know. They look upon us as we look upon
the beasts of our fields, and I learn from their written rec-
ords that other races of Mahars feed upon men— they
keep them in great droves, as we keep cattle. They breed
them most carefully, and when they are quite fat, they
kill and eat them.**

I shuddered.

"What is there horrible about it, David?** the old man
asked. "They understand us no better than we under-
stand the lower animals of our own world. Why, I have
come across here very learned discussions of the question
as to whether gilaks, that is men, have any means of com-
munication. One writer claims that we do not even reason
—that our every act is mechanical, or instinctive. The
dominant race of Pellucidar, David, has not yet learned
that men converse among themselves, or reason. Because
we do not converse as they do it is beyond them to imag-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 51

ine that we converse at all. It is thus that we reason in
relation to the brutes of our own world. They know that
the Sagoths have a spoken language, but yet they cannot
comprehend it, or how it manifests itself, since they have
no auditory apparatus. They believe that the motions of
the hps alone convey the meaning. That the Sagoths can
communicate with us is incomprehensible to them.

**Yes, David,'* he concluded, "it would entail murder to
carry out yoin* plan."

**Very well then, Perry," I repHed. "I shall become a
murderer."

He got me to go over the plan again most carefully, and
for some reason which was not at the time clear to me
insisted upon a very careful description of the apartments
and corridors I had just explored.

"I wonder, David," he said at length, "as you are deter-
mined to carry out your wild scheme, if we could not ac-
complish something of very real and lasting benefit for
the human race of PeUucidar at the same time. Listen, I
have learned much of a most siuprising nature from these
archives of the Mahars. That you may appreciate my plan
I shall briefly outHne the history of the race.

"Once the males were all-powerful, but ages ago the
females, httle by httle, assumed the mastery. For other
ages no noticeable change took place in the race of
Mahars. It continued to progress under the inteUigent
and beneficent rule of the ladies. Science took vast
strides. This was especially true of the sciences which we
know as biology and eugenics. Finally a certain female
scientist announced the fact that she had discovered a
method whereby eggs might be fertihzed by chemical
means after they were laid— all true reptiles, you know,
are hatched from eggs.

**What happened? Immediately the necessity for males

52 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

ceased to exist— the race was no longer dependent upon
them. More ages elapsed until at the present time we find
a race consisting exclusively of females. But here is the
point. The secret of this chemical formula is kept by a sin-
gle race of Mahars. It is in the city of Phutra, and unless I
am greatly in error I judge from your description of the
vaults through which you passed today that it Hes hidden
in the cellar of this building.

"For two reasons they hide it away and guard it jea-
lously. First, because upon it depends the very Me of the
race of Mahars, and second, owing to the fact that when
it was pubHc property as at first so many were ex-
perimenting with it that the danger of overpopulation
became very grave.

"David, if we can escape, and at the same time take
with us this great secret what will we not have accom-
phshed for the human race within Pellucidar!**

The very thought of it fairly overpowered me. Why, we
two would be the means of placing the men of the inner
world in their rightful place among created things. Only
the Sagoths would then stand between them and absolute
supremacy, and I was not quite sure but that the Sagoths
owed all their power to the greater intelligence of the
Mahars— I could not beheve that these gorilla-Hke beasts
were the mental superiors of the human race of Pellu-
cidar.

"Why, Perry," I exclaimed, "you and I may reclaim a
whole world I Together we can lead the races of men out
of the darkness of ignorance into the hght of advance-
ment and civiHzation. At one step we may carry them
from the Age of Stone to the twentieth century. It*s mar-
velous—absolutely marvelous just to think about it."

"David," said the old man, "I beheve that God sent us
here for just that purpose— it shall be my life work to

Edgar Rice Burroughs 53

teach them His word— to lead them into the Bght of His
mercy while we are training their hearts and hands in the
ways of culture and civiHzation/'

"You are right, Perry," I said, "and while you are
teaching them to pray Til be teaching them to fight, and
between us we'll make a race of men that will be an
honor to us both."

Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we
concluded our conversation, and now he wanted to know
what we were so excited about. Perry thought we had
best not tell him too much, and so I only explained that I
had a plan for escape. When I had outhned it to him, he
seemed about as horror-struck as Perry had been; but for
a different reason. The Hairy One only considered the
horrible fate that would be ours were we discovered; but
at last I prevailed upon him to accept my plan as the only
feasible one, and when I had assured him that I would
take all the responsibility for it were we captured, he ac-
corded a reluctant assent

CHAPTER VI

THE BEGINNING OF HORROR

Within Pellucidar one time is as good as another. There
were no nights to mask our attempted escape. All must be
done in broad dayhght— all but the work I had to do in
the apartment beneath the building. So we determined to
put our plan to an immediate test lest the Mahars who
made it possible should awake before I reached them; but
we were doomed to disappointment, for no sooner had we
reached the main floor of the building on our way to the
pits beneath, than we encountered hurrying bands of

54 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

slaves being hastened under strong Sagoth guard out of
the edifice to the avenue beyond.

Other Sagoths were darting hither and thither in search
of other slaves, and the moment that we appeared we
were pounced upon and hustied into the line of marching
humans.

What the purpose or nature of the general exodus we
did not know, but presently through the Hne of captives
ran the rumor that two escaped slaves had been recap-
tured—a man and a woman— and that we were marching
to witness their punishment, for the man had killed a
Sagoth of the detachment that had pursued and over-
taken them.

At the intelhgence my heart sprang to my throat, for I
was sure that the two were of those who escaped in the
dark grotto with Hooja the Sly One, and that Dian must
be the woman. Ghak thought so too, as did Perry.

**Is there naught that we may do to save her?" I asked
Ghak.

"Naught," he replied.

Along the crowded avenue we marched, the guards
showing unusual cruelty toward us, as though we, too,
had been implicated in the murder of their fellow. The
occasion was to serve as an object-lesson to all other
slaves of the danger and futility of attempted escape, and
the fatal consequences of taking the life of a superior
being, and so I imagine that Sagoths felt amply justified
in making the entire proceeding as uncomfortable and
painful to us as possible.

They jabbed us with their spears and struck at us with
their hatchets at the least provocation, and at no provoca-
tion at all. It was a most imcomfortable half -hour that we
spent before we were finally herded through a low en-
trance into a huge building the center of which was given
up to a good-sized arena. Benches surrounded this open

Edgar Rice Burroughs 55

space upon three sides, and along the fourth were heaped
huge bowlders which rose in receding tiers toward the
roof.

At first I couldn't make out the purpose of this mighty
pile of rock, unless it were intended as a rough and pic-
turesque background for the scenes which were enacted
in the arena before it, but presently, after the wooden
benches had been pretty well filled by slaves and Sagoths,
I discovered the purpose of the bowlders, for then the
Mahars began to file into the enclosure.

They marched directly across the arena toward the
rocks upon the opposite side, where, spreading their bat-
like wdngs, they rose above the high wall of the pit, set-
tling down upon the bowlders above. These were the re-
served seats, the boxes of the elect.

Reptiles that they are, the rough siu^ace of a great
stone is to them as plush and upholstery to us. Here they
lolled, bhnldng their hideous eyes, and doubtless con-
versing with one another in their sixth-sense-fourth-
dimension language.

For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed
from the others in no feature that was appreciable to my
earthly eyes, in fact all Mahars look alike to me; but when
she crossed the arena after the balance of her female sub-
jects had found their bowlders, she was preceded by a
score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever had seen, and on
either side of her waddled a huge thipdar, while behind
came another score of Sagoth guardsmen.

At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side
with truly apehke agihty, while behind them the haughty
queen rose upon her wings with her two frightful dragons
close beside her, and settled down upon the largest
bowlder of them all in the exact center of that side of the
amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race.
Here she squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting

56 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

queen; though doubtless quite as well assured of her
beauty and divine right to rule as the proudest monarch
of the outer world.

And then the music started— music without sound I The
Mahars cannot hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of
earthly bands are unknown among them. The "hand"
consists of a score or more Mahars. It filed out in the cen-
ter of the arena where the creatures upon the rocks might
see it, and there it performed for fifteen or twenty min-
utes.

Their technic consisted in waving their tails and mov-
ing their heads in a regular succession of measured move-
ments resulting in a cadence which evidently pleased the
eye of the Mahar as the cadence of our own instrumental
music pleases oin: ears. Sometimes the band took meas-
ured steps in unison to one side or the other, or backward
and again forward— it all seemed very silly and meaning-
less to me, but at the end of the first piece the Mahars
upon the rocks showed the first indications of enthusiasm
that I had seen displayed by the dominant race of Pelluci-
dar. They beat their great wdngs up and dov^na, and smote
their rocky perches v^th their mighty tails until the
ground shook. Then the band started another piece, and
all was again as silent as the grave. That was one great
beauty about Mahar music— if you didn't happen to hke a
piece that was being played all you had to do was shut
your eyes.

When the band had exhausted its repertory it took
vvdng and settled upon rocks above and behind the queen.
Then the business of the day was on. A man and woman
were pushed into the arena by a couple of Sagoth guards-
men. I leaned far forward in my seat to scrutinize the
female— hoping against hope that she might prove to be
another than Dian the Beautiful. Her back was toward

Edgar Rice Burroughs 57

me for a while, and the sight of the great mass of raven
hair piled high upon her head filled me with alarm.

Presently a door in one side of the arena wall was
opened to admit a huge, shaggy, bull-Hke creature.

"A Bos," whispered Perry, excitedly. "His kind roamed
the outer crust with the cave bear and the mammoth ages
and ages ago. We have been carried back a milhon years,
David, to the childhood of a planet— is it not wondrous?"

But I saw only the raven hair of a half-naked girl, and
my heart stood still in dumb misery at the sight of her,
nor had I any eyes for the wonders of natural history. But
for Perry and Ghak I should have leaped to the floor of
the arena and shared whatever fate lay in store for this
priceless treasure of the Stone Age.

With the advent of the Bos— they call the thing a tliag
within Pellucidar— two spears were tossed into the arena
at the feet of the prisoners. It seemed to me that a bean
shooter would have been as effective against the mighty
monster as these pitiful weapons.

As the animal approached the two, bellowing and paw-
ing the ground with the strength of many earthly bulls,
another door directly beneath us was opened, and from it
issued the most terrific roar that ever had fallen upon my
outraged ears. I could not at first see the beast from
which emanated this fearsome challenge, but the sound
had the effect of bringing the two victims around with a
sudden start, and then I saw the girl's face— she was not
Dianl I could have wept for relief.

And now, as the two stood frozen in terror, I saw the
author of that fearsome sound creeping stealthily into
view. It was a huge tiger— such as hunted the great Bos
through the jungles primeval when the world was young.
In contour and markings it was not unlike the noblest of
the Bengals of our own world, but as its dimensions were
exaggerated to colossal proportions so too were its color-

58 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

ings exaggerated. Its vivid yellows fairly screamed aloud;
its whites were as eider down; its blacks glossy as the
finest anthracite coal, and its coat long and shaggy as a
mountain goat. That it is a beautiful animal there is no
gainsaying, but if its size and colors are magnified here
within Pellucidar, so is the ferocity of its disposition. It is
not the occasional member of its species that is a man
hunter— all are man himters; but they do not confine their
foraging to man alone, for there is no flesh or fish within
Pellucidar that they will not eat with reHsh in the con-
stant efforts which they make to furnish their huge
carcasses with sufficient sustenance to maintain their
mighty thews.

Upon one side of the doomed pair the thag bellowed
and advanced, and upon the other tarag, the frightful,
crept toward them with gaping mouth and dripping
fangs.

The man seized the spears, handing one of them to the
woman. At the sound of the roaring of the tiger the bull's
bellowing became a veritable frenzy of rageful noise.
Never in my life had I heard such an infernal din as the
two brutes made, and to think that it was all lost upon the
hideous reptiles for whom the show was stagedl

The thag was charging now from one side, and the
tarag from the other. The two puny things standing be-
tween them seemed already lost, but at the very moment
that the beasts were upon them the man grasped his com-
panion by the arm and together they leaped to one side,
while the frenzied creatures came together like locomo-
tives in collision.

There ensued a battle royal which for sustained and
frightful ferocity transcends the power of imagination or
description. Time and again the colossal bull tossed the
enormous tiger high into the air, but each time that the
huge cat touched the ground he returned to the encoun-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 59

ter with apparently undiminished strength, and seem-
ingly increased ire.

For a while the man and woman busied themselves
only with keeping out of the way of the two creatures,
but finally I saw them separate and each creep stealthily
toward one of the combatants. The tiger was now upon
the bull's broad back, clinging to the huge neck with
powerful fangs while its long, strong talons ripped the
heavy hide into shreds and ribbons.

For a moment the bull stood bellowing and quivering
with pain and rage, its cloven hoofs widespread, its tail
lashing viciously from side to side, and then, in a mad
orgy of bucking, it went careening about the arena in
frenzied attempt to unseat its rending rider. It was with
diflBculty that the girl avoided the first mad rush of the
wounded animal.

All its efforts to rid itself of the tiger seemed futile,
imtil in desperation it threw itself upon the ground, roll-
ing over and over. A httle of this so disconcerted the
tiger, knocking its breath from it I imagine, that it lost its
hold, and then, quick as a cat, the great thag was up
again and had buried those mighty horns deep in the
tarag's abdomen, pinning him to the floor of the arena.

The great cat clawed at the shaggy head until eyes and
ears were gone, and naught but a few strips of ragged,
bloody flesh remained upon the skull. Yet through all the
agony of that fearful punishment the thag still stood mo-
tionless pinning down his adversary, and then the man
leaped in, seeing that the bhnd bull would be the least
formidable enemy, and ran his spear through the tarag's
heart.

As the animal's fierce clawdng ceased, the bull raised his
gory, sightless head, and with a horrid roar ran headlong
across the arena. With great leaps and bounds he came,

60 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

straight toward the arena wall directly beneath where we
sat, and then accident carried him, in one of his mighty
springs, completely over the barrier into the midst of the
slaves and Sagoths just in front of us. Swinging his bloody
horns from side to side the beast cut a wide swath before
him straight upward toward our seats. Before him slaves
and gorilla-men fought in mad stampede to escape the
menace of the creature's death agonies, for such only
could that frightful charge have been.

Forgetful of us, our guards joined in the general rush
for the exits, many of which pierced the wall of the am-
phitheater behind us. Perry, Ghak, and I became sepa-
rated in the chaos which reigned for a few moments after
the beast cleared the wall of the arena, each intent upon
saving his own hide.

I ran to the right, passing several exits choked with the
fear-mad mob that were battHng to escape. One would
have thought that an entire herd of thags was loose be-
hind them, rather than a single bhnded, dying beast; but
such is the effect of panic upon a crowd.

CHAPTER vn
FREEDOM

Once out of the direct path of the animal, fear of it left
me, but another emotion as quickly gripped me— hope of
escape that the demoraHzed condition of the guards
made possible for the instant.

I thought of Perry, and but for the hope that I might
better encompass his release if myself free I should have
put the thought of freedom from me at once. As it was I
hastened on toward the right searching for an exit toward

Edgar Rice Burroughs 61

which no Sagoths were fleeing, and at last I found it-a
low, narrow aperture leading into a dark corridor.

Without thought of the possible consequence, I darted
into the shadows of the tunnel, feeling my way along
through the gloom for some distance. The noises of the
amphitheater had grown fainter and fainter until now all
was as silent as the tomb about me. Faint hght filtered
from above through occasional ventilating and hghting
tubes, but it was scarce suflBcient to enable my human
eyes to cope with the darkness, and so I was forced to
move with extreme care, feeling my way along step by
step with a hand upon the wall beside me.

Presently the Hght increased and a moment later, to my
dehght, I came upon a flight of steps leading upward, at
the top of which the brilliant hght of the noonday sun
shone through an opening in the ground.

Cautiously I crept up the stairway to the tunneFs end,
and peering out saw the broad plain of Phutra before me.
The numerous lofty, granite towers which mark the sev-
eral entrances to the subterranean city were all in front of
me— behind, the plain stretched level and unbroken to the
nearby foothills. I had come to the surface, then, beyond
the city, and my chances for escape seemed much en-
hanced.

My first impulse was to await darkness before attempt-
ing to cross the plain, so deeply implanted are habits of
thought; but of a sudden I recollected the perpetual
noonday brilliance which envelops PeUucidar, and with a
smile I stepped forth into the dayhght.

Rank grass, waist high, grows upon the plain of Phutra
—the gorgeous flowering grass of the inner world, each
particular blade of which is tipped with a tiny, five-
pointed blossom— briUiant httle stars of varying colors
that twinkle in the green foHage to add still another
charm to the weird, yet lovely, landscape.

62 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

But then the only aspect which attracted me was the
distant hills in which I hoped to find sanctuary, and so I
hastened on, trampHng the myriad beauties beneath my
hurrying feet. Perry says that the force of gravity is less
upon the surface of the inner world than upon that of the
outer. He explained it all to me once, but I was never par-
ticularly brilliant in such matters and so most of it has es-
caped me. As I recall it the difference is due in some part
to the counter-attraction of that portion of the earth's
crust directly opposite the spot upon the face of Pelluci-
dar at which one's calculations are being made. Be that as
it may, it always seemed to me that I moved with greater
speed and agihty within Pellucidar than upon the outer
surface— there was a certain airy hghtness of step that was
most pleasing, and a feeling of bodily detachment which
I can only compare with that occasionally experienced in
dreams.

And as I crossed Phutra's flower-bespangled plain that
time I seemed almost to fly, though how much of the sen-
sation was due to Perry's suggestion and how much to ac-
tuahty I am sure I do not know. The more I thought of
Perry the less pleasure I took in my new-found freedom.
There could be no Hberty for me within Pellucidar unless
the old man shared it with me, and only the hope that I
might find some way to encompass his release kept me
from turning back to Phutra.

Just how I was to help Perry I could scarce imagine,
but I hoped that some fortuitous circimistances might
solve the problem for me. It was quite evident however
that little less than a miracle could aid me, for what
would I accomplish in this strange world, naked and un-
armed? It was even doubtful that I could retrace my
steps to Phutra should I once pass beyond view of the
plain, and even were that possible, what aid could I bring
to Perry no matter how far I wandered?

Edgar Rice Burroughs 63

The case looked more and more hopeless the longer I
viewed it, yet with a stubborn persistency I forged ahead
toward the foothills. Behind me no sign of pursuit devel-
oped, before me I saw no hving thing. It was as though I
moved through a dead and forgotten world.

I have no idea, of course, how long it took me to reach
the Hmit of the plain, but at last I entered the foothills,
following a pretty httle cafion upward toward the moun-
tains. Beside me frohcked a laughing brooklet, hurrying
upon its noisy way down to the silent sea. In its quieter
pools I discovered many small fish, of four- or five-poimd
weight I should imagine. In appearance, except as to size
and color, they were not imlike the whale of our own
seas. As I watched them playing about I discovered, not
only that they suckled their young, but that at intervals
they rose to the surface to breathe as well as to feed upon
certain grasses and a strange, scarlet hchen which grew
upon the rocks just above the water line.

It was this last habit that gave me the opportimity I
craved to capture one of these herbivorous cetaceans—
that is what Perry caUs them— and make as good a meal as
one can on raw, warm-blooded fish; but I had become
rather used, by this time, to the eating of food in its natu-
ral state, though I still balked on the eyes and entrails,
much to the amusement of Ghak, to whom I always
passed these delicacies.

Crouching beside the brook, I waited until one of the
diminutive purple whales rose to nibble at the long
grasses which overhung the water, and then, like the
beast of prey that man really is, I sprang upon my victim,
appeasing my hunger while he yet wriggled to escape.

Then I drank from the clear pool, and after washing my
hands and face continued my flight. Above the source of
the brook I encountered a rugged chmb to the summit of
a long ridge. Beyond was a steep dechvity to the shore of

64 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet surface of which lay
several beautiful islands.

The view was charming in the extreme, and as no man
or beast was to be seen that might threaten my new-
found liberty, I shd over the edge of the bluflF, and half
shding, half falling, dropped into the delightful valley,
the very aspect of which seemed to offer a haven of peace
and security.

The gently sloping beach along which I walked was
thickly strewn with strangely shaped, colored shells; some
empty, others still housing as varied a multitude of
mollusks as ever might have drawn out their sluggish
lives along the silent shores of the antediluvian seas of the
outer crust. As I walked I could not but compare myself
with the first man of that other world, so complete the
solitude which surrounded me, so primal and untouched
the virgin wonders and beauties of adolescent nature. I
felt myself a second Adam wending my lonely way
through the childhood of a world, searching for my Eve,
and at the thought there rose before my mind's eye the
exquisite outhnes of a perfect face surmounted by a loose
pile of wondrous, raven hair.

As I walked, my eyes were bent upon the beach so that
it was not until I had come quite upon it that I discovered
that which shattered all my beautiful dream of soHtude
and safety and peace and primal overlordship. The thing
was a hollowed log drawn upon the sands, and in the bot-
tom of it lay a crude paddle.

The rude shock of awakening to what doubtless might
prove some new form of danger was still upon me when I
heard a ratthng of loose stones from the direction of the
bluff, and turning my eyes in that direction I beheld the
author of the disturbance, a great copper-colored man,
running rapidly toward me.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 65

There was that in the haste with which he came which
seemed quite suflBciently menacing, so that I did not need
the added evidence of brandishing spear and scowling
face to warn me that I was in no safe position, but
whither to flee was indeed a momentous question.

The speed of the fellow seemed to preclude the possi-
bihty of escaping him upon the open beach. There was
but a single alternative— the rude skiff— and with a
celerity which equaled his, I pushed the thing into the sea
and as it floated gave a final shove and clambered in over
the end.

A cry of rage rose from the owner of the primitive craft,
and an instant later his heavy, stone-tipped spear grazed
my shoulder and buried itself in the bow of the boat be-
yond. Then I grasped the paddle, and with feverish haste
urged the awkward, wobbly thing out upon the surface of
the sea.

A glance over my shoulder showed me that the copper-
colored one had plunged in after me and was swimming
rapidly in pursuit. His mighty strokes bade fair to close
up the distance between us in short order, for at best I
could make but slow progress with my unfamiliar craft,
which nosed stubbornly in every direction but that which
I desired to follow, so that fully half my energy was ex-
pended in turning its blimt prow back into the course.

I had covered some hundred yards from shore when it
became evident that my pursuer must grasp the stem of
the skiff within the next half-dozen strokes. In a frenzy of
despair, I bent to the grandfather of all paddles in a hope-
less effort to escape, and still the copper giant behind me
gained and gained.

His hand was reaching upward for the stem when I
saw a sleek, sinuous body shoot from the depths below.
The man saw it too, and the look of terror that overspread

66 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

his face assured me that I need have no further concern
as to him, for the fear of certain death was in his look.

And then about him coiled the great, sHmy folds of a
hideous monster of that prehistoric deep— a mighty ser-
pent of the sea, with fanged jaws, and darting forked
tongue, with bulging eyes, and bony protuberances upon
head and snout that formed short, stout horns.

As I looked at that hopeless struggle my eyes met those
of the doomed man, and I could have sworn that in his I
saw an expression of hopeless appeal. But whether I did
or no there swept through me a sudden compassion for
the fellow. He was indeed a brother-man, and that he
might have killed me with pleasure had he caught me was
forgotten in the extremity of his danger.

Unconsciously I had ceased paddling as the serpent
rose to engage my pursuer, so now the skiff still drifted
close beside the two. The monster seemed to be but play-
ing with his victim before he closed his awful jaws upon
him and dragged him down to his dark den beneath the
surface to devour him. The huge, snakeUke body coiled
and uncoiled about its prey. The hideous, gaping jaws
snapped in the victim's face. The forked tongue, Hght-
ning-hke, ran in and out upon the copper skin.

Nobly the giant battled for his life, beating with his
stone hatchet against the bony armor that covered that
frightful carcass; but for all the damage he inflicted he
might as well have struck with his open palm.

At last I could endure no longer to sit supinely by while
a fellowman was dragged down to a horrible death by
that repulsive reptile. Embedded in the prow of the skiff
lay the spear that had been cast after me by him whom I
suddenly desired to save. With a wrench I tore it loose,
and standing upright in the wobbly log drove it with all
the strength of my two arms straight into the gaping jaws
of the hydrophidian.

Edgar Rice Burroughs tl

With a loud hiss the creature abandoned its prey to
turn upon me, but the spear, imbedded in its throat, pre-
vented it from seizing me though it came near to over-
turning the skiff in its mad efforts to reach me.

CHAPTER vni
THE MAHAR TEMPLE

The aborigine, apparently uninjured, climbed quickly
into the skiff, and seizing the spear with me helped to
hold off the infuriated creature. Blood from the wounded
reptile was now crimsoning the waters about us and soon
from the weakening struggles it became evident that I
had inflicted a death wound upon it. Presently its efforts
to reach us ceased entirely, and with a few convulsive
movements it turned upon its back quite dead.

And then there came to me a sudden realization of the
predicament in which I had placed myself. I was entirely
within the power of the savage man whose skiff I had
stolen. Still chnging to the spear I looked into his face to
find him scrutinizing me intently, and there we stood for
some several minutes, each clinging tenaciously to the
weapon the while we gazed in stupid wonderment at
each other.

What was in his mind I do not know, but in my own
was merely the question as to how soon the fellow would
recommence hostihties.

Presently he spoke to me, but in a tongue which I was
unable to translate. I shook my head in an effort to indi-
cate my ignorance of his language, at the same time
addressing him in the bastard tongue that the Sagoths use
to converse with the human slaves of the Mahars.

68 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

To my delight he understood and answered me in the
same jargon.

**What do you want of my spear?" he asked.

"Only to keep you from running it through me," I
rephed.

"I would not do that/* he said, "for you have just saved
my life,'* and with that he released his hold upon it and
squatted down in the bottom of the ski£F.

**Who are you,** he continued, "and from what country
do you come?**

I too sat dovni, laying the spear between us, and tried
to explain how I came to Pellucidar, and wherefrom, but
it was as impossible for him to grasp or beheve the
strange tale I told him as I fear it is for you upon the
outer crust to beheve in the existence of the inner world.

To him it seemed quite ridiculous to imagine that there
was another world far beneath his feet peopled by beings
similar to himself, and he laughed uproariously the more
he thought upon it. But it was ever thus. That which has
never come vdthin the scope of our really pitifully meager
world-experience cannot be— our finite minds cannot
grasp that which may not exist in accordance with the
conditions which obtain about us upon the outside of the
insignificant grain of dust which wends its tiny way
among the bowlders of the universe— the speck of moist
dirt we so proudly call the World.

So I gave it up and asked him about himself. He said
he was a Mezop, and that his name was Ja.

**Who are the Mezops?** I asked. "Where do they hve?**

He looked at me in surprise.

"I might indeed beheve that you were from another
world,*' he said, "for who of Pellucidar could be so igno-
rant I The Mezops hve upon the islands of the seas. In so
far as I ever have heard no Mezop hves elsewhere, and no
others than Mezops dwell upon islands, but of course it

Edgar Rice Burroughs 69

may be different in other far-distant lands. I do not know.
At any rate in this sea and those near by it is true that
only people of my race inhabit the islands.

"We are fishermen, though we be great hvinters as well,
often going to the mainland in search of the game that is
scarce upon all but the larger islands. And we are war-
riors also,'* he added proudly. "Even the Sagoths of the
Mahars fear us. Once, when Pellucidar was young, the
Sagoths were wont to capture us for slaves as they do the
other men of Pellucidar, it is handed down from father to
son among us that this is so; but we fought so desperately
and slew so many Sagoths, and those of us that were cap-
tured killed so many Mahars in their own cities that at
last they learned that it were better to leave us alone, and
later came the time that the Mahars became too indolent
even to catch their own fish, except for amusement, and
then they needed us to supply their wants, and so a truce
was made between the races. Now they give us certain
things which we are unable to produce in return for the
fish that we catch, and the Mezops and the Mahars hve in
peace.

"The great ones even come to our islands. It is there,
far from the prying eyes of their own Sagoths, that they
practice their reHgious rites in the temples they have
builded there with our assistance. If you hve among us
you will doubtless see the manner of their worship, which
is strange indeed, and most unpleasant for the poor slaves
they bring to take part in it."

As Ja talked I had an excellent opportunity to inspect
him more closely. He was a huge fellow, standing I
should say six feet six or seven inches, well developed and
of a coppery red not unfike that of our own North Ameri-
can Indian, nor were his features dissimilar to theirs. He
had the aquihne nose found among many of the higher
tribes, the prominent cheek bones, and black hair and

70 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

eyes, but his mouth and hps were better molded. All in
all, Ja was an impressive and handsome creatiire, and he
talked well too, even in the miserable makeshift language
we were compelled to use.

During our conversation Ja had taken the paddle and
was propeUing the skiff with vigorous strokes toward a
large island that lay some half-mile from the mainland.
The sldU with which he handled his crude and awkward
craft ehcited my deepest admiration, since it had been so
short a time before that I had made such pitiful work of
it.

As we touched the pretty, level beach Ja leaped out
and I followed him. Together we dragged the skiff far
up into the bushes that grew beyond the sand.

"We must hide our canoes," explained Ja, "for the
Mezops of Luana are always at war with us and w^ould
steal them if they found them," he nodded toward an is-
land farther out at sea, and at so great a distance that it
seemed but a blur hanging in the distant sky. The upward
curve of the surface of Pellucidar was constantly reveal-
ing the impossible to the surprised eyes of the outer-
earthly. To see land and water curving upward in the dis-
tance until it seemed to stand on edge where it melted
into the distant sk>% and to feel that seas and mountains
hung suspended directly above one's head required such
a complete reversal of the perceptive and reasoning fac-
ulties as almost to stupefy one.

No sooner had we hidden the canoe than Ja plunged
into the jungle, presently emerging into a narrow but
weU-defined trail which wound hither and thither much
after the manner of the highways of all primitive folk, but
there was one pecuharity about this Mezop trail which I
was later to find distinguished them from aU other trails
that I ever have seen within or without the earth.

It would run on, plain and clear and well defined to

Edgar Rice Burroughs 71

end suddenly in the midst of a tangle of matted jungle,
then Ja would turn directly back in his tracks for a Httle
distance, spring into a tree, climb through it to the other
side, drop onto a fallen log, leap over a low bush and
ahght once more upon a distinct trail which he would fol-
low back for a short distance only to turn directly about
and retrace his steps until after a mile or less this new
pathway ended as suddenly and mysteriously as the for-
mer section. Then he would pass again across some media
which would reveal no spoor, to take up the broken
thread of the trail beyond.

As the purpose of this remarkable avenue dawned upon
me I could not but admire the native shrewdness of the
ancient progenitor of the Mezops who hit upon this
novel plan to throw his enemies from his track and delay
or thwart them in their attempts to follow him to his
deep-buried cities.

To you of the outer earth it might seem a slow and tor-
tuous method of traveling through the jungle, but were
you of Pellucidar you would reahze that time is no factor
where time does not exist. So labyrinthine are the wind-
ings of these trails, so varied the connecting hnks and the
distances which one must retrace one's steps from the
paths' ends to find them that a Mezop often reaches man's
estate before he is famihar even with those which lead
from his own city to the sea.

In fact three-fourths of the education of the young
male Mezop consists in famiharizing himself with these
jungle avenues, and the status of an adult is largely deter-
mined by the number of trails which he can follow upon
his own island. The females never learn them, since from
birth to death they never leave the clearing in which the
village of their nativity is situated except they be taken to
mate by a male from another village, or captured in war
by the enemies of their tribe.

72 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

After proceeding through the jungle for what must
have been upward of five miles we emerged suddenly
into a large clearing in the exact center of which stood as
strange an appearing village as one might well imagine.

Large trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty
feet above the ground, and upon the tops of them spheri-
cal habitations of woven twigs, mud covered, had been
built. Each ball-like house was surmounted by some man-
ner of carven image, which Ja told me indicated the iden-
tity of the owner.

Horizontal sHts, six inches high and two or three feet
wide, served to admit light and ventilation. The entrances
to the houses were through small apertures in the bases of
the trees and thence upward by rude ladders through the
hollow trunks to the rooms above. The houses varied in
size from two to several rooms. The largest that I entered
was divided into two floors and eight apartments.

All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay
beautifully cultivated fields in which the Mezops raised
such cereals, fruits, and vegetables as they required.
Women and children were working in these gardens as
we crossed toward the village. At sight of Ja they saluted
deferentially, but to me they paid not the shghtest atten-
tion. Among them and about the outer verge of the culti-
vated area were many warriors. These too saluted Ja, by
touching the points of their spears to the ground directly
before them.

Ja conducted me to a large house in the center of the
village— the house with eight rooms— and taking me up
into it gave me food and drink. There I met his mate, a
comely girl with a nursing baby in her arms. Ja told her of
how 1 had saved his Hfe, and she was thereafter most kind
and hospitable toward me, even permitting me to hold
and amuse the tiny bundle of humanity whom Ja told me

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Edgar Rice Burroughs 73

would one day rule the tribe, for Ja, it seemed, was the
chief of the community.

We had eaten and rested, and I had slept, much to Ja's
amusement, for it seemed that he seldom if ever did so,
and then the red man proposed that I accompany him to
the temple of the Mahars which lay not far from his vil-
lage.

"We are not supposed to visit it,'* he said; **but the
great ones cannot hear and if we keep well out of sight
they need never know that we have been there. For my
part I hate them and always have, but the other chief-
tains of the island think it best that we continue to main-
tain the amicable relations which exist between the two
races; otherwise I should like nothing better than to lead
my warriors amongst the hideous creatures and extermi-
nate them— Pellucidar would be a better place to hve
were there none of them.*'

I wholly concurred in Ja's belief, but it seemed that it
might be a diflBcult matter to exterminate the dominant
race of Pellucidar. Thus conversing we followed the intri-
cate trail toward the temple, which we came upon in a
small clearing surrounded by enormous trees similar to
those which must have flourished upon the outer crust
during the carboniferous age.

Here was a mighty temple of hewn rock built in the
shape of a rough oval with rounded roof in which were
several large openings. No doors or windows were visible
in the sides of the structure, nor was there need of any,
except one entrance for the slaves, since, as Ja explained,
the Mahars flew to and from their place of ceremonial,
entering and leaving the building by means of the aper-
tures in the roof.

"But," added Ja, "there is an entrance near the base of
which even the Mahars know nothing. Come," and he led
me across the clearing and about the end to a pile of loose

74 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

rock which lay against the foot of the wall. Here he re-
moved a couple of large bowlders, revealing a small open-
ing which led straight within the building, or so it
seemed, though as I entered after Ja I discovered myself
in a narrow place of extreme darkness.

"We are within the outer wall,*' said Ja. "It is hollow.
Follow me closely."

The red man groped ahead a few paces and then began
to ascend a primitive ladder similar to that which leads
from the ground to the upper stories of his house. We as-
cended for some forty feet when the interior of the space
between the walls commenced to grow hghter and pres-
endy we came opposite an opening in the inner wall
which gave us an unobstructed view of the entire interior
of the temple.

The lower floor was an enormous tank of clear water in
which numerous hideous Mahars swam lazily up and
down. Artificial islands of granite rock dotted this
artificial sea, and upon several of them I saw men and
women hke myself.

"What are the human beings doing here?" I asked.

"Wait and you shall see," rephed Ja. **They are to take
a leading part in the ceremonies which will follow the ad-
vent of the queen. You may be thankful that you are not
upon the same side of the wall as they."

Scarcely had he spoken than we heard a great flutter-
ing of wings above and a moment later a long procession
of the frightful reptiles of Pellucidar winged slowly and
majestically through the large central opening in the roof
and circled in stately manner about the temple.

There were several Mahars first, and then at least
twenty awe-inspiring pterodactyls— thipdars, they are
called within Pellucidar. Behind these came the queen,
flanked by other thipdars as she had been when she en-
tered the amphitheater at Phutra.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 75

Three times they wheeled about the interior of the oval
chamber, to settle finally upon the damp, cx)ld bowlders
that fringe the outer edge of the pool. In the center of one
side the largest rock was reserved for the queen, and here
she took her place surrounded by her terrible guard.

All lay quiet for several minutes after settHng to their
places. One might have imagined them in silent prayer.
The poor slaves upon the diminutive islands watched the
horrid creatures with wide eyes. The men, for the most
part, stood erect and stately with folded arms, awaiting
their doom; but the women and children clung to one an-
other, hiding behind the males. They are a noble-looking
race, these cave men of Pellucidar, and if our progenitors
were as they, the human race of the outer crust has dete-
riorated rather than improved with the march of the ages.
All they lack is opportunity. We have opportimity, and
little else.

Now the queen moved. She raised her ugly head, look-
ing about; then very slowly she crawled to the edge of her
throne and shd noiselessly into the water. Up and down
the long tank she swam, turning at the ends as you have
seen captive seals turn in their tiny tanks, turning upon
their backs and diving below the surface.

Nearer and nearer to the island she came until at last
she remained at rest before the largest, which was
directly opposite her throne. Raising her hideous head
from the water she fixed her great, round eyes upon the
slaves. They were fat and sleek, for they had been
brought from a distant Mahar city where human beings
are kept in droves, and bred and fattened, as we breed
and fatten beef cattle.

The queen fixed her gaze upon a plump young maiden.
Her victim tried to turn away, hiding her face in her
hands and kneefing behind a woman; but the reptile, with
imbhnking eyes, stared on with such fixity that I could

76 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

have sworn her vision penetrated the woman, and the
girFs arms to reach at last the very center of her brain.

Slowly the reptile's head commenced to move to and
fro, but the eyes never ceased to bore toward the fright-
ened girl, and then the victim responded. She turned
wide, fear-haunted eyes toward the Mahar queen, slowly
she rose to her feet, and then as though dragged by some
imseen power she moved as one in a trance straight to-
ward the reptile, her glassy eyes fixed upon those of her
captor.

To the water's edge she came, nor did she even pause,
but stepped into the shallows beside the httle island. On
she moved toward the Mahar, who now slowly retreated
as though leading her victim on. The water rose to the
girl's knees, and still she advanced, chained by that
clammy eye. Now the water was at her waist; now her
armpits. Her fellows upon the island looked on in horror,
helpless to avert her doom in which they saw a forecast of
their own.

The Mahar sank now till only the long upper bill and
eyes were exposed above the surface of the water, and
the girl had advanced until the end of that repulsive beak
was but an inch or two from her face, her horror-filled
eyes riveted upon those of the reptile.

Now the water passed above the girl's mouth and nose
—her eyes and forehead all that showed— yet still she
walked on after the retreating Mahar. The queen's head
slowly disappeared beneath the sinf ace and after it went
the eyes of her victim— only a slow ripple widened toward
the shores to mark where the two vanished.

For a time all was silence within the temple. The slaves
were motionless in terror. The Mahars watched the sur-
face of the water for the reappearance of their queen, and
presently at one end of the tank her head rose slowly into
view. She was backing toward the surface, her eyes fixed

Edgar Rice Burroughs 77

before her as they had been when she dragged the help-
less girl to her doom.

And then to my utter amazement I saw the forehead
and eyes of the maiden come slowly out of the depths,
following the gaze of the reptile just as when she had
disappeared beneath the surface. On and on came the girl
until she stood in water that reached barely to her knees,
and though she had been beneath the surface suflBcient
time to have drowned her thrice over there was no indi-
cation, other than her dripping hair and gHstening body,
that she had been submerged at all.

Again and again the queen led tlie girl into the depths
and out again, until the uncanny weirdness of the thing
got on my nerves so that I could have leaped into the
tank to the child's rescue had I not taken a firm hold of
myself.

Once they were below much longer than usual, and
when they came to the surface I was horrified to see that
one of the girl's arms was gone— gnawed completely off at
the shoulder— but the poor thing gave no indication of re-
ahzing pain, only the horror in her set eyes seemed in-
tensified.

The next time they appeared the other arm was gone,
and then the breasts, and then a part of the face— it was
awful. The poor creatures on the islands awaiting their
fate tried to cover their eyes with their hands to hide the
fearful sight, but now I saw that they too were under the
hypnotic spell of the reptiles, so that they could only
crouch in terror with their eyes fixed upon the terrible
thing that was transpiring before them.

Finally the queen was under much longer than ever be-
fore, and when she rose she came alone and swam sleep-
ily toward her bowlder. The moment she mounted it
seemed to be the signal for the other Mahars to enter the
tank, and then commenced, upon a larger scale, a repeti-

78 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

tion of the uncanny performance through which the
queen had led her victim.

Only the women and children fell prey to the Mahars—
they being the weakest and most tender— and when they
had satisfied their appetite for human flesh, some of them
devouring two and three of the slaves, there were only a
score of fuU-grown men left, and I thought that for some
reason these were to be spared, but such was far from the
case, for as the last Mahar crawled to her rock the queen's
thipdars darted into the air, circled the temple once and
then, hissing Hke steam engines, swooped down upon the
remaining slaves.

There was no hypnotism here— just the plain, brutal fe-
rocity of the beast of prey, tearing, rending, and gulping
its meat, but at that it was less horrible than the uncanny
method of the Mahars. By the time the thipdars had
disposed of the last of the slaves the Mahars were all
asleep upon their rocks, and a moment later the great
pterodactyls swung back to their posts beside the queen,
and themselves dropped into slumber.

"I thought the Mahars seldom, if ever, slept,*' I said to
Ja.

**They do many things in this temple which they do not
do elsewhere," he repUed. "The Mahars of Phutra are not
supposed to eat human flesh, yet slaves are brought here
by thousands and almost always you will find Mahars on
hand to consume them. I imagine that they do not bring
their Sagoths here, because they are ashamed of the prac-
tice, which is supposed to obtain only among the least ad-
vanced of their race; but I would wager my canoe against
a broken paddle that there is no Mahar but eats human
flesh whenever she can get it."

**Why should they object to eating human flesh," I
asked, "if it is true that they look upon us as lower ani-
mals?"

Edgar Rice Burroughs 79

*lt is not because they consider us their equals that
they are supposed to look with abhorrence upon those
who eat our flesh," replied Ja; "it is merely that we are
warm-blooded animals. They would not think of eating
the meat of a thag, which we consider such a delicacy,
any more than I would think of eating a snake. As a mat-
ter of fact it is diflBcult to explain just why this sentiment
should exist among them."

*1 wonder if they left a single victim," I remarked,
leaning far out of the opening in the rocky wall to inspect
the temple better. Directly below me the water lapped
the very side of the wall, there being a break in the
bowlders at this point as there was at several other places
about the side of the temple.

My hands were resting upon a small piece of granite
which formed a part of the wall, and all my weight upon
it proved too much for it. It shpped and I lunged forward.
There was nothing to grasp to save myself and I plunged
headforemost into the water below.

Fortunately the tank was deep at this point, and I
suffered no injury from the fall, but as I was rising to the
surface my mind filled with the horrors of my position as
I thought of the terrible doom which awaited me the mo-
ment the eyes of the reptiles fell upon the creature that
had disturbed their slumber.

As long as I could I remained beneath the surface,
swimming rapidly in the direction of the islands that I
might prolong my hfe to the utmost. At last I was forced
to rise for air, and as I cast a terrified glance in the direc-
tion of the Mahars and the thipdars I was almost stunned
to see that not a single one remained upon the rocks
where I had last seen them, nor as I searched the temple
with my eyes could I discern any within it.

For a moment I was puzzled to account for the thing,
until I reahzed that the reptiles, being deaf, could not

80 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

have been disturbed by the noise my body made when it
hit the water, and that as there is no such thing as time
within Pellucidar there was no telling how long I had
been beneath the surface. It was a difficult thing to at-
tempt to figure out by earthly standards— this matter of
elapsed time— but when I set myself to it I began to real-
ize that I might have been submerged a second or a
month or not at all. You have no conception of the
strange contradictions and impossibilities which arise
when all methods of measuring time, as we know them
upon earth, are non-existent.

I was about to congratulate myself upon the miracle
which had saved me for the moment, when the memory
of the hypnotic powers of the Mahars filled me with ap-
prehension lest they be practicing their uncanny art upon
me to the end that I merely imagined that I was alone in
the temple. At the thought cold sweat broke out upon me
from every pore, and as I crawled from the water onto
one of the tiny islands I was trembling hke a leaf— you
cannot imagine the awful horror which even the simple
thought of the repulsive Mahars of Pellucidar induces in
the human mind, and to feel that you are in their power-
that they are crawHng, slimy, and abhorrent, to drag you
down beneath the waters and devour youl It is frightful.

But they did not come, and at last I came to the con-
clusion that I was indeed alone within the temple. How
long I should be alone was the next question to assail me
as I swam frantically about once more in search of a
means to escape.

Several times I called to Ja, but he must have left after
I tumbled into the tank, for I received no response to my
cries. Doubtless he had felt as certain of my doom when
he saw me topple from our hiding place as I had, and lest
he too should be discovered, had hastened from the tem-
ple and back to his village.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 81

I knew that there must be some entrance to the build-
ing besides the doorways in the roof, for it did not seem
reasonable to beheve that the thousands of slaves which
were brought here to feed the Mahars the human flesh
they craved would all be carried through the air, and so I
continued my search until at last it was rewarded by the
discovery of several loose granite blocks in the masonry at
one end of the temple.

A httle effort proved suflBcient to dislodge enough of
these stones to permit me to crawl through into the clear-
ing, and a moment later I had scurried across the inter-
vening space to the dense jungle beyond.

Here I sank panting and trembling upon the matted
grasses beneath the giant trees, for I felt that I had es-
caped from the grinning fangs of death out of the depths
of my own grave. Whatever dangers lay hidden in this is-
land jungle, there could be none so fearsome as those
which I had just escaped. I knew that I could meet death
bravely enough if it but came in the form of some familiar
beast or man— anything other than the hideous and im-
canny Mahars.

CHAPTER IX

THE FACE OF DEATH

I MUST HAVE fallen asleep from exhaustion. When I awoke
I was very hungry, and after busying myself searching for
fruit for a while, I set off through the jungle to find the
beach. I knew that the island was not so large but that I
could easily find the sea if I did but move in a straight
line, but there came the diflBculty as there was no way in
which I could direct my course and hold it, the sun, of

82 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

course, being always directly above my head, and the
trees so thickly set that I could see no distant object
which might serve to guide me in a straight line.

As it was I must have walked for a great distance since
I ate four times and slept twice before I reached the sea,
but at last I did so, and my pleasure at the sight of it was
greatly enhanced by the chance discovery of a hidden
canoe among the bushes through which I had stumbled
just prior to coming upon the beach.

I can tell you that it did not take me long to pull that
awkward craft down to the water and shove it far out
from shore. My experience with Ja had taught me that if I
were to steal another canoe I must be quick about it and
get far beyond the owner's reach as soon as possible.

I must have come out upon the opposite side of the is-
land from that at which Ja and I had entered it, for the
mainland was nowhere in sight. For a long time I paddled
around the shore, though well out, before I saw the main-
land in the distance. At the sight of it I lost no time in
directing my course toward it, for I had long since made
up my mind to return to Phutra and give myself up that I
might be once more with Perry and Ghak the Hairy One.

I felt that I was a fool ever to have attempted to escape
alone, especially in view of the fact that our plans were
already well formulated to make a break for freedom to-
gether. Of course I reaHzed that the chances of the suc-
cess of our proposed venture were shm indeed, but I
knew that I never could enjoy freedom without Perry so
long as the old man lived, and I had learned that the
probability that I might find him was less than shght.

Had Perry been dead, I should gladly have pitted my
strength and wit against the savage and primordial world
in which I found myself. I could have Hved in seclusion
within some rocky cave until I had found the means to
outfit myself with the crude weapons of the Stone Age,

Edgar Rice Burroughs 83

and then set out in search of her whose image had now
become the constant companion of my waking hours, and
the central and beloved figure of my dreams.

But, to the best of my knowledge, Perry still hved and
it was my duty and wish to be again with him, that we
might share the dangers and vicissitudes of the strange
world we had discovered. And Ghak, too; the great,
shaggy man had found a place in the hearts of us both,
for he was indeed every inch a man and king. Uncouth,
perhaps, and brutal, too, if judged too harshly by the
standards of eflFete twentieth-century civihzation, but
withal noble, dignified, chivalrous, and lovable.

Chance carried me to the very beach upon which I had
discovered Ja's canoe, and a short time later I was scram-
bhng up the steep bank to retrace my steps from the plain
of Phutra. But my troubles came when I entered the
canon beyond the summit, for here I found that severed
of them centered at the point where I crossed the divide,
and which one I had traversed to reach the pass I could
not for the life of me remember.

It was all a matter of chance and so I set oflF down that
which seemed the easiest going, and in this I made the
same mistake that many of us do in selecting the path
along which we shall follow out the course of our hves,
and again learned that it is not always best to follow the
line of least resistance.

By the time I had eaten eight meals and slept twice I
was convinced that I was upon the wrong trail, for be-
tween Phutra and the inland sea I had not slept at all,
and had eaten but once. To retrace my steps to the sum-
mit of the divide and explore another canon seemed the
only solution of my problem, but a sudden widening and
levelness of the canon just before me seemed to suggest
that it was about to open into a level country, and with

84 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

the lure of discovery strong upon me I decided to proceed
but a short distance farther before I turned back.

The next turn of the canon brought me to its mouth,
and before me I saw a narrow plain leading down to an
ocean. At my right the side of the caiion continued to the
water's edge, the valley lying to my left, and the foot of it
running gradually into the sea, where it formed a broad
level beach.

Clumps of strange trees dotted the landscape here and
there almost to the water, and rank grass and ferns grew
between. From the nature of the vegetation I was con-
vinced that the land between the ocean and the foothills
was swampy, though directly before me it seemed dry
enough all the way to the sandy strip along which the
restless waters advanced and retreated.

Curiosity prompted me to walk down to the beach, for
the scene was very beautiful. As I passed along beside the
deep and tangled vegetation of the swamp I thought that
I saw a movement of the ferns at my left, but though I
stopped a moment to look it was not repeated, and if any-
thing lay hid there my eyes could not penetrate the dense
fohage to discern it.

Presently I stood upon the beach looking out over the
wdde and lonely sea across whose forbidding bosom no
human being had yet ventured, to discover what strange
and mysterious lands lay beyond, or what its invisible is-
lands held of riches, wonders, or adventure. What savage
races, what fierce and formidable beasts were this very in-
stant watching the lapping of the waves upon its farther
shore! How far did it extend? Perry had told me that the
seas of Pellucidar were small in comparison with those of
the outer crust, but even so this great ocean might stretch
its broad expanse for thousands of miles. For countless
ages it had rolled up and down its countless miles of

Edgar Rice Burroughs 85

shore, and yet today it remained all unknown beyond the
tiny strip that was visible from its beaches.

The fascination of speculation was strong upon me. It
was as though I had been carried back to the birth time
of our own outer world to look upon its lands and seas
ages before man had traversed either. Here was a new
world, all untouched. It called to me to explore it. I was
dreaming of the excitement and adventure which lay be-
fore us could Perry and I but escape the Mahars, when
something, a shght noise I imagine, drew my attention
behind me.

As I turned, romance, adventure, and discovery in the
abstract took wing before the terrible embodiment of all
three in concrete form that I beheld advancing upon me.

A huge, shmy amphibian it was, with toad-like body
and the mighty jaws of an alhgator. Its immense carcass
must have weighed tons, and yet it moved swiftly and
silently toward me. Upon one hand was the bluff that ran
from the canon to the sea, on the other the fearsome
swamp from which the creature had sneaked upon me,
behind lay the mighty imtracked sea, and before me in
the center of the narrow way that led to safety stood this
huge mountain of terrible and menacing flesh.

A single glance at the thing was suflBcient to assure me
that I was facing one of those long-extinct, prehistoric
creatures whose fossihzed remains are found within the
outer crust as far back as the Triassic formation, a gigan-
tic labyrinthodon. And there I was, unarmed, and, with
the exception of a loin cloth, as naked as I had come into
the world. I could imagine how my first ancestor felt that
distant, prehistoric mom that he encountered for the first
time the terrifying progenitor of the thing that had me
cornered now beside the restless, mysterious sea.

Unquestionably he had escaped, or I should not have
been within Pellucidar or elsewhere, and I wished at that

86 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

moment that he had handed down to me with the various
attributes that I presume I have inherited from him, the
specific application of the instinct of self-preservation
which saved him from the fate which loomed so close be-
fore me today.

To seek escape in the swamp or in the ocean would
have been similar to jumping into a den of Hons to escape
one upon the outside. The sea and swamp both were
doubtless ahve with these mighty, carnivorous amphib-
ians, and if not, the individual that menaced me would
pursue me into either the sea or the swamp with equal fa-
cihty.

There seemed nothing to do but stand supinely and
await my end. I thought of Perry— how he would wonder
what had become of me. I thought of my friends of the
outer world, and of how they all would go on Hving their
lives in total ignorance of the strange and terrible fate
that had overtaken me, or unguessing the weird smround-
ings which had witnessed the last frightful agony of my
extinction. And with these thoughts came a reahzation of
how unimportant to the life and happiness of the world is
the existence of any one of us. We may be snuffed out
without an instant's warning, and for a brief day our
friends speak of us with subdued voices. The following
morning, while the first worm is busily engaged in testing
the construction of our coflBn, they are teeing up for the
first hole to suffer more acute sorrow over a sliced ball
than they did over our, to us, untimely demise. The laby-
rinthodon was coming more slowly now. He seemed to
realize that escape for me was impossible, and I could
have sworn that his huge, fanged jaws grinned in pleasur-
able appreciation of my predicament, or was it in antici-
pation of the juicy morsel which would so soon be pulp
between those formidable teeth?

He was about fifty feet from me when I heard a voice

Edgar Rice Burroughs 87

calling to me from the direction of the bluff at my left. I
looked and could have shouted in dehght at the sight that
met my eyes, for there stood Ja, waving frantically to me,
and urging me to run for it to the cliffs base.

I had no idea that I should escape the monster that had
marked me for his breakfast, but at least I should not die
alone. Human eyes would watch me end. It was cold
comfort I presume, but yet I derived some sHght peace of
mind from the contemplation of it.

To run seemed ridiculous, especially toward that steep
and unscalable cliff, and yet I did so, and as I ran I saw
Ja, agile as a monkey, crawl down the precipitous face of
the rocks, chnging to small projections, and the tough
creepers that had foimd root-hold here and there.

The labyrinthodon evidently thought that Ja was com-
ing to double his portion of himian flesh, so he was in no
haste to pursue me to the chff and frighten away this
other titbit. Instead he merely trotted along behind me.

As I approached the foot of the cliff I saw what Ja in-
tended doing, but I doubted if the thing would prove suc-
cessful. He had come dov^ni to wdthin twenty feet of the
bottom, and there, chnging with one hand to a small
ledge, and with his feet resting precariously upon tiny
bushes that grew from the sohd face of the rock, he low-
ered the point of his long spear until it hung some six feet
above the ground.

To clamber up that shm shaft without dragging Ja
down and precipitating both to the same doom from
which the copper-colored one was attempting to save me
seemed utterly impossible, and as I came near the spear I
told Ja so, and that I could not risk him to try to save my-
self.

But he insisted that he knew what he was doing and
was in no danger himself.

"The danger is stiU yours," he called, "for imless you

88 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

move much more rapidly than you are now, the sithic will
be upon you and drag you back before ever you are half-
way up the spear—he can rear up and reach you with ease
anywhere below where I stand/'

Well, Ja should know his own business, I thought, and
so I grasped the spear and clambered up toward the red
man as rapidly as I could— being so far removed from my
simian ancestors as I am. I imagine the slow-witted sithic,
as Ja called him, suddenly reahzed our intentions and
that he was quite likely to lose all his meal instead of hav-
ing it doubled as he had hoped.

When he saw me clambering up that spear he let out a
hiss that fairly shook the ground, and came charging after
me at a terrific rate. I had reached the top of the spear by
this time, or almost; another six inches would give me a
hold on Ja's hand, when I felt a sudden wrench from
below and glancing fearfully downward saw the mighty
jaws of the monster close on the sharp point of the
weapon.

I made a frantic eflFort to reach Ja's hand, the sithic
gave a tremendous tug that came near to jerking Ja from
his frail hold on the surface of the rock, the spear sHpped
from his fingers, and still chnging to it I plunged feet
foremost toward my executioner.

At the instant that he felt the spear come away from
Ja's hand the creature must have opened his huge jaws to
catch me, for when I came down, still chnging to the butt
end of the weapon, the point yet rested in his mouth and
the result was that the sharpened end transfixed his lower
jaw.

With the pain he snapped his mouth closed. I fell upon
his snout, lost my hold upon the spear, rolled the length
of his face and head, across his short neck onto his broad
back and from there to the ground.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 89

Scarce had I touched the earth than I was upon my
feet, dashing madly for the path by which I had entered
this horrible valley. A glance over my shoulder showed
me the sithic engaged in pawing at the spear stuck
through his lower jaw, and so busily engaged did he re-
main in this occupation that I had gained the safety of
the cliff top before he was ready to take up the pursuit.
When he did not discover me in sight within the valley he
dashed, hissing, into the rank vegetation of the swamp
and that was the last that I saw of him.

CHAPTER X

PHUTRA AGAIN

I HASTENED to the cHff edge above Ja and helped him to a
secure footing. He would not hsten to any thanks for his
attempt to save me, which had come so near miscarrying.

"I had given you up for lost when you tumbled into the
Mahar temple,'* he said, "for not even I could save you
from their clutches, and you may imagine my surprise
when on seeing a canoe dragged up upon the beach of
the mainland I discovered your own footprints in the
sand beside it.

"I immediately set out in search of you, knowing as I
did that you must be entirely unarmed and defenseless
against the many dangers which lurk upon the mainland
both in the form of savage beasts and reptiles, and men as
well. I had no difficulty in tracking you to this point. It is
well that I arrived when I did."

"But why did you do it?" I asked, puzzled at this show
of friendship on the part of a man of another world and a
different race and color.

90 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

**You saved my life/* he replied; "from that moment it
became my duty to protect and befriend you. I would
have been no true Mezop had I evaded my plain duty;
but it was a pleasure in this instance for I hke you. I wish
that you would come and hve with me. You shall become
a member of my tribe. Among us there is the best of hunt-
ing and fishing, and you shall have, to choose a mate
from, the most beautiful girls of Pellucidar. Will you
come?"

I told him about Perry then, and Dian the Beautiful,
and how my duty was to them first. Afterward I should
return and visit him— if I could ever find his island.

**Oh, that is easy, my friend," he said. *^ou need
merely to come to the foot of the highest peak of the
Mountains of the Clouds. There you will find a river
which flows into tlie Lural Az. Directly opposite the
mouth of the river you will see three large islands far out,
so far that they are barely discernible, the one to the ex-
treme left as you face them from the mouth of the river is
Anoroc, where I rule the tribe of Anoroc."

"But how am I to find the Mountains of the Clouds?" I
asked.

"Men say that they are visible from half Pellucidar," he
rephed.

"How large is Pellucidar?" I asked, wondering what
sort of theory these primitive men had concerning the
form and substance of their world.

"The Mahars say it is roimd, like the inside of a tola
shell," he answered, *T3ut that is ridiculous, since, were it
true, we should fall back were we to travel far in any di-
rection, and all the waters of Pellucidar would run to one
spot and drown us. No, Pellucidar is quite flat and ex-
tends no man knows how far in all directions. At the
edges, so my ancestors have reported and handed down
to me, is a great wall that prevents the earth and waters

Edgar Rice Burroughs 91

from escaping over into the burning sea whereon Pelluci-
dar floats; but I never have been so far from Anoroc as to
have seen this wall with my own eyes. However, it is
quite reasonable to beheve that this is true, whereas there
is no reason at all in the fooHsh behef of the Mahars. Ac-
cording to them Pellucidarians who Hve upon the oppo-
site side walk always with their heads pointed down-
ward!" and Ja laughed uproariously at the very thought.

It was plain to see that the human folk of this inner
world had not advanced far in learning, and the thought
that the ugly Mahars had so outstripped them was a very
pathetic one indeed. I wondered how many ages it would
take to lift these people out of their ignorance even were
it given to Perry and me to attempt it. Possibly we would
be killed for our pains as were those men of the outer
world who dared challenge the dense ignorance and su-
perstitions of the earth's younger days. But it was worth
the effort if the opportunity ever presented itself.

And then it occurred to me that here was an oppor-
tunity—that I might make a small beginning upon Ja, who
was my friend, and thus note the effect of my teaching
upon a Pellucidarian.

*7a," I said, "what would you say were I to tell you
that in so far as the Mahars' theory of the shape of Pellu-
cidar is concerned it is correct?"

"I would say," he repHed, "that either you are a fool, or
took me for one."

"But, Ja," I insisted, "if their theory is incorrect how do
you account for the fact that I was able to pass through
the earth from the outer crust to Pellucidar. If your
theory is correct all is a sea of flame beneath us, where in
no peoples could exist, and yet I come from a great world
that is covered with human beings, and beasts, and birds,
and fishes in mighty oceans."

"You Hve upon the under side of Pellucidar, and walk

92 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

always with your head pointed downward?^ he scoffed.
"And were I to beheve that, my friend, I should indeed
be mad."

I attempted to explain the force of gravity to him, and
by the means of the dropped fruit to illustrate how impos-
sible it would be for a body to fall off the earth under any
circumstances. He Hstened so intently that I thought I
had made an impression, and started the train of thought
that would lead him to a partial understanding of the
truth. But I was mistaken.

**Yoin: own illustration," he said finally, "proves the fal-
sity of your theory." He dropped a fruit from his hand to
the ground. "See," he said, "without support even this
tiny fruit falls until it strikes something that stops it. If
Pellucidar were not supported upon the flaming sea it too
would fall as the fruit falls— you have proven it yourself 1"
He had me, that time— you could see it in his eye.

It seemed a hopeless job and I gave it up, temporarily
at least, for when I contemplated the necessary explana-
tion of om: solar system and the universe I reaHzed how
futile it would be to attempt to picture to Ja or any other
PeUucidarian the sun, the moon, the planets, and the
countless stars. Those bom within the inner world could
no more conceive of such things than can we of the outer
crust reduce to factors appreciable to our finite minds
such terms as space and eternity.

**WeU, Ja," I laughed, "whether we be walking with
our feet up or down, here we are, and the question of
greatest importance is not so much where we came from
as where we are going now. For my part I wish that you
could guide me to Phutra where I may give myself up to
the Mahars once more that my friends and I may work
out the plan of escape which the Sagoths interrupted
when they gathered us together and drove us to the arena
to witness the punishment of the slaves who killed the

Edgar Rice Burroughs 93

guardsman. I wish now that I had not left the arena for
by this time my friends and I might have made good our
escape, whereas this delay may mean the wrecking of all
our plans, which depended for their consummation upon
the continued sleep of the three Mahars who lay in the pit
beneath the building in which we were confined."

**You would retiu-n to captivity?" cried Ja.

"My friends are there," I replied, "the only friends I
have in Pellucidar, except yourself. What else may I do
under the circumstances?"

He thought for a moment in silence. Then he shook his
head sorrowfully.

"It is what a brave man and a good friend should do,"
he said; "yet it seems most foohsh, for the Mahars will
most certainly condemn you to death for running away,
and so you wdll be accomphshing nothing for your friends
by returning. Never in all my life have I heard of a pris-
oner returning to the Mahars of his own free will. There
are but few who escape them, though some do, and these
would rather die than be recaptured."

"I see no other way, Ja," I said, "though I can assure
you that I would rather go to Sheol after Perry than to
Phutra. However, Perry is much too pious to make the
probabiHty at all great that I should ever be called upon
to rescue him from the former locality."

Ja asked me what Sheol was, and when I explained, as
best I could, he said, "You are speaking of Molop Az, the
flaming sea upon which Pellucidar floats. All the dead
who are buried in the ground go there. Piece by piece
they are carried down to Molop Az by the httle demons
who dwell there. We know this because when graves are
opened we find that the bodies have been partially or en-
tirely borne off. That is why we of Anoroc place our dead
in high trees where the birds may find them and bear
them bit by bit to the Dead World above the Land of

94 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Awful Shadow. If we kill an enemy we place his body in
the ground that it may go to Molop Az."

As we talked we had been walking up the canon down
which I had come to the great ocean and the sithic. Ja did
his best to dissuade me from retinrning to Phutra, but
when he saw that I was determined to do so, he con-
sented to guide me to a point from which I could see the
plain where lay the city. To my surprise the distance was
but short from the beach where I had again met Ja. It
was evident that I had spent much time following the
windings of a tortuous canon, while just beyond the ridge
lay the city of Phutra near to which I must have come
several times.

As we topped the ridge and saw the granite gate towers
dotting the flowered plain at our feet Ja made a final
effort to persuade me to abandon my mad purpose and
return with him to Anoroc, but I was firm in my resolve,
and at last he bid me good-bye, assiu-ed in his own mind
that he was looking upon me for the last time.

I was sorry to part with Ja, for I had come to like him
very much indeed. With his hidden city upon the island
of Anoroc as a base, and his savage warriors as escort
Perry and I could have accompHshed much in the hne of
exploration, and I hoped that were we successful in our
effort to escape we might return to Anoroc later.

There was, however, one great thing to be accom-
pHshed first— at least it was the great thing to me—the
finding of Dian the Beautiful. I wanted to make amends
for the affront I had put upon her in my ignorance, and I
wanted to— well, I wanted to see her again, and to be
with her.

Down the hillside I made my way into the gorgeous
field of flowers, and then across the rolling land toward
the shadowless columns that guard the ways to binied
Phutra. At a quarter-mile from the nearest entrance I was

Edgar Rice Burroughs 95

discovered by the Sagoth guard, and in an instant four of
the gorilla-men were dashing toward me.

Though they brandished their long spears and yelled
like wild Comanches I paid not the sHghtest attention to
them, walking quietly toward them as though unaware of
their existence. My manner had the effect upon them that
I had hoped, and as we came quite near together they
ceased their savage shouting. It was evident that they had
expected me to turn and flee at sight of them, thus pre-
senting that which they most enjoyed, a moving human
target at which to cast their spears.

"What do you here?" shouted one, and then as he rec-
ognized me, "Hoi It is the slave who claims to be from
another world— he who escaped when the thag ran amuck
within the amphitheater. But why do you return, having
once made good your escape?**

"I did not *escapeV* I rephed. "I but ran away to avoid
the thag, as did others, and coming into a long passage I
became confused and lost my way in the foothills beyond
Phutra. Only now have I found my way back."

"And you come of your free will back to Phutra!** ex-
claimed one of the guardsmen.

"Where else might I go?** I asked. "I am a stranger
within Pellucidar and know no other where than Phutra.
Why should I not desire to be in Phutra? Am I not well
fed and well treated? Am I not happy? What better lot
could man desire?*'

The Sagoths scratched their heads. This was a new one
on them, and so being stupid brutes they took me to their
masters whom they felt would be better fitted to solve the
riddle of my return, for riddle they still considered it.

I had spoken to the Sagoths as I had for the purpose of
throwing them off the scent of my purposed attempt at
escape. If they thought that I was so satisfied with my lot
within Phutra that I would voluntarily retirni when I had

96 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

once had so excellent an opportunity to escape, they
would never for an instant imagine that I could be occu-
pied in arranging another escape immediately upon my
return to the city.

So they led me before a slimy Mahar who clung to a
slimy rock within the large room that was the thing's
office. With cold, reptihan eyes the creature seemed to
bore through the thin veneer of my deceit and read my
inmost thoughts. It heeded the story which the Sagoths
told of my return to Phutra, watching the gorilla-men's
hps and fingers during the recital. Then it questioned me
through one of the Sagoths.

**You say that you returned to Phutra of your own free
will, because you think yourself better off here than else-
where—do you not know that you may be the next cho-
sen to give up yom: life in the interests of the wonderful
scientific investigations that our learned ones are con-
tinually occupied with?"

I hadn't heard of anything of that nature, but I thought
best not to admit it.

"I could be in no more danger here," I said, "than
naked and unarmed in the savage jungles or upon the
lonely plans of Pellucidar. I was fortunate, I think, to re-
turn to Phutra at all. As it was I barely escaped death
within the jaws of a huge sithic. No, I am sure that I am
safer in the hands of inteUigent creatures such as rule
Phutra. At least such would be the case in my own world,
where human beings like myself rule supreme. There the
higher races of man extend protection and hospitahty to
the stranger within their gates, and being a stranger here
I naturally assumed that a like courtesy would be ac-
corded me."

The Mahar looked at me in silence for some time after I
ceased speaking and the Sagoth had translated my words
to his master. The creature seemed deep in thought. Pres-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 97

ently he communicated some message to the Sagoth. The
latter turned, and motioning me to follow him, left the
presence of the reptile. Behind and on either side of me
marched tlie balance of the guard.

'What are they going to do with me?" I asked the
fellow at my right.

"You are to appear before the learned ones who will
question you regarding this strange world from which
you say you come."

After a moment's silence he turned to me again.

"Do you happen to know," he asked, "what the Mahars
do to slaves who lie to them?"

"No," I replied, "nor does it interest me, as I have no
intention of lying to the Mahars."

**Then be careful that you don't repeat the impossible
tale you told Sol-to-to just now— another world, indeed,
where human beings rulel" he concluded in fine scorn.

"But it is the truth," I insisted. "From where else then
did I come? I am not of Pellucidar. Anyone with half an
eye could see that."

"It is your misfortune then," he remarked dryly, "that
you may not be judged by one with but half an eye."

"What will they do with me," I asked, "if they do not
have a mind to beheve me?"

"You may be sentenced to the arena, or go to the pits
to be used in research work by the learned ones," he
rephed.

"And what wall they do with me there?" I persisted.

"No one knows except the Mahars and those who go to
the pits with them, but as the latter never return, their
knowledge does them but Httle good. It is said that the
learned ones cut up their subjects while they are yet ahve,
thus learning many useful things. However I should not
imagine that it would prove very useful to him who was
being cut up; but of course this is all but conjecture. The

98 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

chances are that ere long you will know much more about
it than I," and he grinned as he spoke. The Sagoths have a
well-developed sense of humor.

"And suppose it is the arena," I continued; "what
then?"

**You saw the two who met the tarag and the thag the
time that you escaped?*' he said.

"Yes."

"Your end in the arena would be similar to what was
intended for them," he explained, "though of course the
same kinds of animals might not be employed."

"It is sure death in either event?" I asked.

**What becomes of those who go below with the
learned ones I do not know, nor does any other," he
rephed; *T3ut those who go to the arena may come out
ahve and thus regain their Hberty, as did the two whom
you saw."

"They gained their hberty? And how?"

"It is the custom of the Mahars to hberate those who
remain ahve within the arena after the beasts depart or
are killed. Thus it has happened that several mighty war-
riors from far distant lands, whom we have captured on
our slave raids, have battled the brutes turned in upon
them and slain them, thereby winning their freedom. In
the instance which you witnessed the beasts killed each
other, but the result was the same— the man and woman
were hberated, furnished with weapons, and started on
their homeward journey. Upon the left shoulder of each a
mark was burned— the mark of the Mahars— which will
forever protect these two from slaving parties."

"There is a slender chance for me then if I be sent to
the arena, and none at all if the learned ones drag me to
the pits?"

"You are quite right," he rephed; "but do not fehcitate

Edgar Rice Burroughs 99

yourself too quickly should you be sent to the arena, for
there is scarce one in a thousand who comes out alive.**

To my surprise they returned me to the same building
in which I had been confined with Perry and Ghak before
my escape. At the doorway I was turned over to the
guards there.

"He will doubtless be called before the investigators
shortly," said he who had brought me back, "so have him
in readiness.'*

The guards in whose hands I now found myself, upon
hearing that I had retLimed of my own voHtion to Phutra
evidently felt that it would be safe to give me hberty
within the building as had been the custom before I had
escaped, and so I was told to return to whatever duty had
been mine formerly.

My first act was to hunt up Perry; whom I found poring
as usual over the great tomes that he was supposed to be
merely dusting and rearranging upon new shelves.

As I entered the room he glanced up and nodded pleas-
antly to me, only to resume his work as though I had
never been away at all. I was both astonished and hurt at
his indifference. And to think that I was risking death to
return to him purely from a sense of duty and affection!

'Why, Perry!*' I exclaimed, "haven*t you a word for me
after my long absence?"

"Long absence!** he repeated in evident astonishment.
"What do you mean?**

"Are you cra2:y. Perry? Do you mean to say that you
have not missed me since that time we were separated by
the charging thag vdthin the arena?**

"*That time'," he repeated. "Why man, I have but just
returned from the arena! You reached here almost as soon
as I. Had you been much later I should indeed have been
worried, and as it is I had intended asking you about how

100 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

you escaped the beast as soon as I had completed the
translation of this most interesting passage.**

'Terry, you are mad/* I exclaimed. **Why, the Lord
only knows how long I have been away. I have been to
other lands, discovered a new race of humans within Pel-
lucidar, seen the Mahars at their worship in their hidden
temple, and barely escaped with my Hfe from them and
from a great labyrinthodon that I met afterward, follow-
ing my long and tedious wanderings across an unknown
world. I must have been away for months. Perry, and now
you barely look up from your work when I return and in-
sist that we have been separated but a moment. Is that
any way to treat a friend? I'm surprised at you. Perry, and
if I'd thought for a moment that you cared no more for
me than this I should not have returned to chance death
at the hands of the Mahars for your sake.'*

The old man looked at me for a long time before he
spoke. There was a puzzled expression upon his wrinkled
face, and a look of hurt sorrow in his eyes.

"David, my boy," he said, "how could you for a mo-
ment doubt my love for you? There is something strange
here that I cannot understand. I know that I am not mad,
and I am equally sure that you are not; but how in the
world are we to account for the strange hallucinations
that each of us seems to harbor relative to the passage of
time since last we saw each other. You are positive that
months have gone by, while to me it seems equally cer-
tain that not more than an hour ago I sat beside you in
the amphitheater. Can it be that both of us are right and
at the same time both are wrong? First tell me what time
is, and then maybe I can solve our problem. Do you catch
my meaning?**

I didn't and said so.

**Yes,** continued the old man, "we are both right. To
me, bent over my book here, there has been no lapse of

Edgar Rice Burroughs 101

time. I have done little or nothing to waste my energies
and so have required neither food nor sleep, but you, on
the contrary, have walked and fought and wasted
strength and tissue which must needs be rebuilt by nutri-
ment and food, and so, having eaten and slept many
times since last you saw me you naturally measure the
lapse of time largely by these acts. As a matter of fact,
David, I am rapidly coming to the conviction that there is
no such thing as time— surely there can be no time here
within Pellucidar, where there are no means for measur-
ing or recording time. Why, the Mahars themselves take
no account of such a thing as time. I find here in all their
literary works but a single tense, the present. There seems
to be neither past nor future with them. Of course it is im-
possible for our outer-earthly minds to grasp such a con-
dition, but our recent experiences seem to demonstrate its
existence."

It was too big a subject for me, and I said so, but Perry
seemed to enjoy nothing better than speculating upon it,
and after listening with interest to my account of the ad-
ventures through which I had passed he returned once
more to the subject, which he was enlarging upon with
considerable fluency when he was interrupted by the en-
trance of a Sagoth.

"Gomel** commanded the intruder, beckoning to me.
**The investigators would speak with you.**

"Good-bye, Perry!** I said, clasping the old man*s hand.
"There may be nothing but the present and no such thing
as time, but I feel that I am about to take a trip into the
hereafter from which I shall never return. If you and
Ghak should manage to escape I want you to promise me
that you will find Dian the Beautiful and tell her that
with my last words I asked her forgiveness for the unin-
tentional affront I put upon her, and that my one wish

102 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

was to be spared long enough to right the wrong that I
had done her."

Tears came to Perry's eyes.

"I cannot beheve but that you will return, David," he
said. "It would be awful to think of hving out the balance
of my hfe without you among these hateful and repulsive
creatures. If you are taken away I shall never escape, for I
feel that I am as well off here as I should be anywhere
within this buried world. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye 1"
and then his old voice faltered and broke, and as he hid
his face in his hands the Sagoth guardsman grasped me
roughly by the shoulder and hustled me from the
chamber.

CHAPTER XI

FOUR DEAD MAHARS

A MOMENT later I was standing before a dozen Mahars—
the social investigators of Phutra. They asked me many
questions, through a Sagoth interpreter. I answered them
all truthfully. They seemed particularly interested in my
account of the outer earth and the strange vehicle which
had brought Perry and me to Pellucidar. I thought that I
had convinced them, and after they had sat in silence for
a long time following my examination, I expected to be
ordered returned to my quarters.

During this apparent silence they were debating
through the medium of strange, unspoken language the
merits of my tale. At last the head of the tribunal com-
municated the result of their conference to the ojBBcer in
charge of the Sagoth guard.

"Come," he said to me, "you are sentenced to the ex-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 103

perimental pits for having dared to insult the intelligence
of the mighty ones with the ridiculous tale you have had
the temerity to unfold to them."

"Do you mean that they do not beheve me?" I asked,
totally astonished.

"Beheve youl" he laughed. "Do you mean to say that
you expected any one to beheve so impossible a he?"

It was hopeless, and so I walked in silence beside my
guard down through the dark corridors and runways to-
ward my awful doom. At a low level we came upon a
number of hghted chambers in which we saw many
Mahars engaged in various occupations. To one of these
chambers my guard escorted me, and before leaving they
chained me to a side wall. There were other humans
similarly chained. Upon a long table lay a victim even as I
was ushered into the room. Several Mahars stood about
the poor creature holding him down so that he could not
move. Another, grasping a sharp knife with her three-toed
fore foot, was laying open the victim's chest and abdo-
men. No anesthetic had been administered and the
shrieks and groans of the tortiured man were terrible to
hear. This, indeed, was vivisection with a vengeance.
Cold sweat broke out upon me as I reahzed that soon my
turn would come. And to think that where there was no
such thing as time I might easily imagine that my suffer-
ing was enduring for months before death finally released
mel

The Mahars had paid not the shghtest attention to me
as I had been brought into the room. So deeply immersed
were they in their work that I am sure they did not even
know that the Sagoths had entered with me. The door
was close by. Would that I could reach it I But those
heavy chains precluded any such possibihty. I looked
about for some means of escape from my bonds. Upon
the floor between me and the Mahars lay a tiny surgical

104 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

instrument which one of them must have dropped. It
looked not unlike a buttonhook, but was much smaller,
and its point was sharpened. A hundred times in my boy-
hood days had I picked locks with a buttonhook. Could I
but reach that httle bit of poHshed steel I might yet effect
at least a temporary escape.

Crawhng to the Hmit of my chain, I found that by
reaching one hand as far out as I could my fingers still fell
an inch short of the coveted instrument. It was tantaliz-
ing! Stretch every fiber of my being as I would, I could
not quite make it.

At last I turned about and extended one foot toward
the object. My heart came to my throat! I could just
touch the thing! But suppose that in my effort to drag it
toward me I should accidentally shove it still farther
away and thus entirely out of reach! Cold sweat broke out
upon me from every pore. Slowly and cautiously I made
the effort. My toes dropped upon the cold metal. Gradu-
ally I worked it toward me imtil I felt that it was within
reach of my hand and a moment later I had turned about
and the precious thing was in my grasp.

Assiduously I fell to work upon the Mahar lock that
held my chain. It was pitifully simple. A child might have
picked it, and a moment later I was free. The Mahars
were now evidently completing their work at the table.
One already turned away and was examining other vic-
tims, evidently with the intention of selecting the next
subject.

Those at the table had their backs toward me. But for
the creatiu*e walking toward us I might have escaped that
moment. Slowly the thing approached me, when its atten-
tion was attracted by a huge slave chained a few yards to
my right. Here the reptile stopped and commenced to go
over the poor devil carefully, and as it did so its back
turned toward me for an instant, and in that instant I

Edgar Rice Burroughs 105

gave two mighty leaps that carried me out of the chamber
into the corridor beyond, down which I raced with all the
speed I could command.

Where I was, or whither I was going, I knew not. My
only thought was to place as much distance as possible
between me and that frightful chamber of torture.

Presently I reduced my speed to a brisk walk, and later
realizing the danger of running into some new predica-
ment, were I not careful, I moved still more slowly and
cautiously. After a time I came to a passage that seemed
in some mysterious way famihar to me, and presendy,
chancing to glance within a chamber which led from the
corridor I saw three Mahars curled up in slumber upon a
bed of sldns. I could have shouted aloud in joy and rehef.
It was the same corridor and the same Mahars that I had
intended to have lead so important a role in our escape
from Phutra. Providence had indeed been land to me, for
the reptiles still slept.

My one great danger now lay in returning to the upper
levels in search of Perry and Ghak, but there was nothing
else to be done, and so I hastened upward. When I came
to the frequented portions of the building, I found a large
burden of sldns in a comer and these I lifted to my head,
carrying them in such a way that ends and comers fell
down about my shoulders completely hiding my face.
Thus disguised I found Perry and Ghak together in the
chamber where we had been wont to eat and sleep.

Both were glad to see me, it is needless to say, though
of course they had known nothing of the fate that had
been meted out to me by my judges. It was decided that
no time should now be lost before attempting to put our
plan of escape to the test, as I could not hope to remain
hidden from the Sagoths long, nor could I forever carry
that bale of sldns about upon my head without arousing
suspicion. However it seemed Hkely that it would carry

106 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

me once more safely through the crowded passages and
chambers of the upper levels, and so I set out with Perry
and Ghak— the stench of the illy cured pelts fairly choking
me.

Together we repaired to the first tier of corridors be-
neath the main floor of the buildings, and here Perry and
Ghak halted to await me. The buildings are cut out of the
solid hmestone formation. There is nothing at all remark-
able about their architecture. The rooms are sometimes
rectangular, sometimes circular, and again oval in shape.
The corridors which connect them are narrow and not al-
ways straight. The chambers are hghted by diflFused sun-
light reflected through tubes similar to those by which the
avenues are hghted. The lower the tiers of chambers, the
darker. Most of the corridors are entirely unhghted. The
Mahars can see quite well in semidarkness.

Down to the main floor we encountered many Mahars,
Sagoths, and slaves; but no attention was paid to us as we
had become a part of the domestic life of the building.
There was but a single entrance leading from the place
into the avenue and this was well guarded by Sagoths—
this doorway alone were we forbidden to pass. It is true
that we were not supposed to enter the deeper corridors
and apartments except on special occasions when we
were instructed to do so; but as we were considered a
lower order without intelligence there was httle reason to
fear that we could accomphsh any harm by so doing, and
so we were not hindered as we entered the corridor which
led below.

Wrapped in a skin I carried three swords, and the two
bows, and the arrows which Perry and I had fashioned.
As many slaves bore skin-wrapped burdens to and fro my
load attracted no comment. Where I left Ghak and Perry
there were no other creatures in sight, and so I withdrew
one sword from the package, and leaving the balance of

Edgar Rice Burroughs 107

the weapons with Perry, started on alone toward the
lower levels.

Having come to the apartment in which the three
Mahars slept I entered silently on tiptoe, forgetting that
the creatures were without the sense of hearing. With a
quick thrust through the heart I disposed of the first but
my second thrust was not so fortunate, so that before I
could kill the next of my victims it had hurled itself
against the third, who sprang quickly up, facing me with
wide-distended jaws. But fighting is not the occupation
which the race of Mahars loves, and when the thing saw
that I already had dispatched two of its companions, and
that my sword was red with their blood, it made a dash to
escape me. But I was too quick for it, and so, half hop-
ping, half flying, it scurried down another corridor with
me close upon its heels.

Its escape meant the utter ruin of our plan, and in all
probabihty my instant death. This thought lent wings to
my feet; but even at my best I could do no more than
hold my own with the leaping thing before me.

Of a sudden it turned into an apartment on the right of
the corridor, and an instant later as I rushed in I found
myself facing two of the Mahars. The one who had been
there when we entered had been occupied with a number
of metal vessels, into which had been put powders and
hquids as I judged from the array of flasks standing about
upon the bench where it had been working. In an instant
I realized what I had stumbled upon. It was the very
room for the finding of which Perry had given me minute
directions. It was the buried chamber in which was hid-
den the Great Secret of the race of Mahars. And on the
bench beside the flasks lay the skin-bound book which
held the only copy of the thing I was to have sought, after
dispatching the three Mahars in their sleep.

There was no exit from the room other than the door-

108 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

way in which I now stood facing the two frightful rep-
tiles. Cornered, I knew that they would fight Hke demons,
and they were well equipped to fight if fight they must.
Together they launched themselves upon me, and though
I ran one of them through the heart on the instant, the
other fastened its gleaming fangs about my sword arm
above the elbow, and then with her sharp talons com-
menced to rake me about the body, evidently intent upon
disembowehng me. I saw that it was useless to hope that
I might release my arm from that powerful, visehke grip
which seemed to be severing my arm from my body. The
pain I suffered was intense, but it only served to spur me
to greater efforts to overcome my antagonist.

Back and forth across the floor we struggled— the
Mahar dealing me terrific, cutting blows with her fore
feet, while I attempted to protect my body with my left
hand, at the same time watching for an opportunity to
transfer my blade from my now useless sword hand to its
rapidly weakening mate. At last I was successful, and
with what seemed to me my last ounce of strength I ran
the blade through the ugly body of my foe.

Soundless, as it had fought, it died, and though weak
from pain and loss of blood, it was with an emotion of tri-
umphant pride that I stepped across its convulsively
stiffening corpse to snatch up the most potent secret of a
world. A single glance assured me it was the very thing
that Perry had described to me.

And as I grasped it did I think of what it meant to the
human race of Pellucidar— did there flash through my
mind the thought that countless generations of my own
kind yet unborn would have reason to worship me for the
thing that I had accomphshed for them? I did not. I
thought of a beautiful oval face, gazing out of limpid
eyes, through a waving mass of jet-black hair. I thought

Edgar Rice Burroughs 109

of red, red lips, God-made for kissing. And of a sudden,
apropos of nothing, standing there alone in the secret
chamber of the Mahars of Pellucidar, I realized that I
loved Dian the Beautiful.

CHAPTER xn
PURSUIT

For an instant I stood there thinking of her, and then,
with a sigh, I tucked the book in the thong that sup-
ported my loin cloth, and turned to leave the apartment.
At the bottom of the corridor which leads aloft from the
lower chambers I whistled in accordance with the prear-
ranged signal which was to announce to Perry and Ghak
that I had been successful. A moment later they stood be-
side me, and to my surprise I saw that Hooja the Sly One
accompanied them.

"He joined us," explained Perry, '*and would not be de-
nied. The fellow is a fox. He scents escape, and rather
than be thwarted of our chance now I told him that I
would bring him to you, and let you decide whether he
might accompany us."

I had no love for Hooja, and no confidence in him. I
was sure that if he thought it would profit him he would
betray us; but I saw no way out of it now, and the fact
that I had killed four Mahars instead of only the three I
had expected to, made it possible to include the fellow in
our scheme of escape.

"Very well," I said, "you may come with us, Hooja; but
at the first intimation of treachery I shall run my sword
through you. Do you understand?"

He said that he did.

no AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Some time later we had removed the skins from the
fom* Mahars, and so succeeded in crawhng inside of them
ourselves that there seemed an excellent chance for us to
pass unnoticed from Phutra. It was not an easy thing to
fasten the hides together where we had split them along
the belly to remove them from their carcasses, but by
remaining out until the others had all been sewed in with
my help, and then leaving an aperture in the breast of
Perry's skin through which he could pass his hands to sew
me up, we were enabled to accomplish our design to re-
ally much better purpose than I had hoped. We managed
to keep the heads erect by passing our swords up through
the necks, and by the same means were enabled to move
them about in a life-like manner. We had our greatest
difficulty with the webbed feet, but even that problem
was finally solved, so that when we moved about we did
so quite naturally. Tiny holes punctmred in the baggy
throats into which our heads were thrust permitted us to
see well enough to guide our progress.

Thus we started up toward the main floor of the build-
ing. Ghak headed the strange procession, then came
Perry, followed by Hooja, while I brought up the rear,
after admonishing Hooja that I had so arranged my sword
that I could thrust it through the head of my disguise into
his vitals were he to show any indication of faltering.

As the noise of hurrying feet warned me that we were
entering the busy corridors of the main level, my heart
came up into my mouth. It is with no sense of shame that
I admit that I was frightened— never before in my life, nor
since, did I experience any such agony of soul-searing
fear and suspense as enveloped me. If it be possible to
sweat blood, I sweat it then.

Slowly, after the manner of locomotion habitual to the
Mahars, when they are not using their wings, we crept
through throngs of busy slaves, Sagoths, and Mahars.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 1 1 \

After what seemed an eternity we reached the outer door
which leads into the main avenue of Phutra. Many Sa-
goths loitered near the opening. They glanced at Ghak as
he padded between them. Then Perry passed, and then
Hooja. Now it was my turn, and then in a sudden fit of
freezing terror I reahzed that the warm blood from my
wounded arm was trickling down through the dead foot
of the Mahar sldn I wore and leaving its tell-tale mark
upon the pavement, for I saw a Sagoth call a compan-
ion's attentions to it.

The guard stepped before me and pointing to my
bleeding foot spoke to me in the sign language which
these two races employ as a means of communication.
Even had I known what he was saying I could not have
rephed with the dead thing that covered me. I once had
seen a great Mahar freeze a presumptuous Sagoth with a
look. It seemed my only hope, and so I tried it. Stopping
in my tracks I moved my sword so that it made the dead
head appear to turn inquiring eyes upon the gorilla-man.
For a long moment I stood perfectly still eyeing the fel-
low with those dead eyes. Then I lowered the head and
started slowly on. For a moment all hung in the balance,
but before I touched him the guard stepped to one side,
and I passed on out into the avenue.

On we went up the broad street, but now we were safe
for the very numbers of our enemies that surrounded us
on all sides. Fortunately, there was a great concourse of
Mahars repairing to the shallow lake which hes a mile or
more from the city. They go there to indulge their am-
phibian proclivities in diving for small fish, and enjoying
the cool depths of the water. It is a fresh-water lake, shal-
low, and free from the larger reptiles which make the use
of the great seas of Pellucidar impossible for any but their
own kind.

In the thick of the crowd we passed up the steps and

112 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

out onto the plain. For some distance Ghak remained
with the stream that was travehng toward the lake, but
finally, at the bottom of a little gully he halted, and there
we remained until all had passed and we were alone.
Then, still in our disguises, we set off directly away from
Phutra.

The heat of the vertical rays of the sun was fast making
our horrible prisons unbearable, so that after passing a
low divide, and entering a sheltering forest, we finally
discarded the Mahar skins that had brought us thus far in
safety.

I shall not weary you with the details of that bitter and
galling flight. How we traveled at a dogged run until we
dropped in our tracks. How we were beset by strange and
terrible beasts. How we barely escaped the cruel fangs of
hons and tigers the size of which would dwarf into pitiful
insignificance the greatest fehnes of the outer world.

On and on we raced, our one thought to put as much
distance between ourselves and Phutra as possible. Ghak
was leading us to his own land— the land of Sari. No sign
of pursuit had developed, and yet we were sure that
somewhere behind us relentless Sagoths were dogging
our tracks. Ghak said they never failed to hunt down their
quarry until they had captured it or themselves been
turned back by a superior force.

Our only hope, he said, lay in reaching his tribe which
was quite strong enough in their mountain fastness to
beat off any number of Sagoths.

At last, after what seemed months, and may, I now
reahze, have been years, we came in sight of the dun es-
carpment which buttressed the foothills of Sari. At almost
the same instant, Hooja, who looked ever quite as much
behind as before, announced that he could see a body of
men far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was
the long-expected pursuit.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 113

I asked Ghak if we could make Sari in time to escape
them.

*We may," he repHed; '*but you will find that the Sa-
goths can move with incredible swiftness, and as they are
almost tireless they are doubdess much fresher than we.
Then—" he paused, glancing at Perry.

I knew what he meant. The old man was exhausted.
For much of the period of our flight either Ghak or I had
half supported him on the march. With such a handicap,
less fleet pursuers than the Sagoths might easily overtake
us before we could scale the rugged heights which con-
fronted us.

**You and Hooja go on ahead," I said. "Perry and I will
make it if we are able. We cannot travel as rapidly as you
two, and there is no reason why all should be lost because
of that. It can't be helped— we have simply to face it."

"I will not desert a companion," was Ghak*s simple
reply. I hadn't known that this great, hairy, primeval man
had any such nobihty of character stowed away inside
him. I had always hked him, but now to my hking was
added honor and respect. Yes, and love.

But still I urged him to go on ahead, insisting that if he
could reach his people he might be able to bring out a
sufficient force to drive off the Sagoths and rescue Perry
and myself.

No, he wouldn't leave us, and that was all there was to
it, but he suggested that Hooja might hurry on and warn
the Sarians of the king's danger. It didn't require much
urging to start Hooja— the naked idea was enough to send
him leaping on ahead of us into the foothills which we
now had reached.

Perry reahzed that he was jeopardizing Ghak's hfe and
mine and the old fellow fairly begged us to go on without
him, although I knew that he was suffering a perfect an-
guish of terror at the thought of faffing into the hands of

114 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

the Sagoths. Ghak finally solved the problem, in part, by
lifting Perry in his powerful arms and carrying him.
While the act cut down Ghak's speed he still could travel
faster thus than when half supporting the stumbling old
man.

CHAPTER xm
THE SLY ONE

The Sagoths were gaining on us rapidly, for once they
had sighted us they had greatly increased their speed. On
and on we stumbled up the narrow canon that Ghak had
chosen to approach the heights of Sari. On either side
rose precipitous cliffs of gorgeous, parti-colored rock,
while beneath our feet a thick mountain grass formed a
soft and noiseless carpet. Since we had entered the canon
we had had no glimpse of our pursuers, and I was com-
mencing to hope that they had lost our trail and that we
would reach the now rapidly nearing cliffs in time to scale
them before we should be overtaken.

Ahead we neither saw nor heard any sign which might
betoken the success of Hooja's mission. By now he should
have reached the outposts of the Sarians, and we should
at least hear the savage cries of the tribesmen as they
swarmed to arms in answer to their king's appeal for suc-
cor. In another moment the frowning cliffs ahead should
be black with primeval warriors. But nothing of the kind
happened— as a matter of fact the Sly One had betrayed
us. At the moment that we expected to see Sarian spear-
men charging to our rehef at Hooja's back, the craven
traitor was sneaking around the outskirts of the nearest
Sarian village, that he might come up from the other side

Edgar Rice Burroughs 115

when it was too late to save us, claiming that he had be-
come lost among the momitains.

Hooja still harbored ill will against me because of the
blow I had struck in Dian's protection, and his malevo-
lent spirit was equal to sacrificing us all that he might be
revenged upon me.

As we drew nearer the barrier cliffs and no sign of res-
cuing Sarians appeared Ghak became both angry and
alarmed, and presently as the sounds of rapidly approach-
ing pursuit fell upon our ears, he called to me over his
shoulder that we were lost.

A backward glance gave me a glimpse of the first of the
Sagoths at the far end of a considerable straight stretch of
canon through which we had just passed, and then a sud-
den turning shut the ugly creature from my view; but the
loud howl of triumphant rage which rose behind us was
evidence that the gorilla-man had sighted us.

Again the canon veered sharply to the left, but to the
right another branch ran on at a lesser deviation from the
general direction, so that it appeared more hke the main
canon than the left-hand branch. The Sagoths were now
not over two hundred and fifty yards behind us, and I
saw that it was hopeless for us to expect to escape other
than by a ruse. There was a bare chance of saving Ghak
and Perry, and as I reached the branching of the canon I
took the chance.

Pausing there I waited until the foremost Sagoth hove
into sight. Ghak and Perry had disappeared around a
bend in the left-hand canon, and as the Sagoth's savage
yell announced that he had seen me I turned and fled up
the right-hand branch. My ruse was successful, and the
entire party of man-hunters raced headlong after me up
one caiion while Ghak bore Perry to safety up the other.

Running had never been my particular athletic forte,
and now when my very life depended upon fleetness of

116 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

foot I cannot say that I ran any better than on the occa-
sions when my pitiful base running had called down upon
my head the rooters' raucous and reproachful cries of "Ice
wagon/' and "Call a cab."

The Sagoths were gaining on me rapidly. There was
one in particular, fleeter than his fellows, who was peril-
ously close. The canon had become but a rocky sHt, ris-
ing roughly at a steep angle toward what seemed a pass
between two abutting peaks. What lay beyond I could
not even guess— possibly a sheer drop of hundreds of feet
into the corresponding valley upon the other side. Could
it be that I had plimged into a cul-de-sac?

Realizing that I could not hope to outdistance the Sa-
goths to the top of the canon I had determined to risk all
in an attempt to check them temporarily, and to this end
had imslung my rudely made bow and plucked an arrow
from the skin quiver which hung behind my shoulder. As
I fitted the shaft with my right hand I stopped and
wheeled toward the gorilla-man.

In the world of my birth I never had drawn a shaft, but
since our escape from Phutra I had kept the party sup-
phed with small game by means of my arrows, and so,
through necessity, had developed a fair degree of accu-
racy. During orn* flight from Phutra I had restnmg my
bow with a piece of heavy gut taken from a huge tiger
which Ghak and I had worried and finally dispatched
with arrows, spear, and sword. The hard wood of the bow
was extremely tough and this, with the strength and elas-
ticity of my new string, gave me unwonted confidence in
my weapon.

Never had I greater need of steady nerves than then—
never were my nerves and muscles under better control. I
sighted as carefully and deHberately as though at a straw
target. The Sagoth had never before seen a bow and
arrow, but of a sudden it must have swept over his duU

Edgar Rice Burroughs > 117

intellect that the thing I held toward him was some sort
of engine of destruction, for he too came to a halt, simul-
taneously swinging his hatchet for a throw. It is one of
the many methods in which they employ this weapon,
and the accuracy of aim which they achieve, even under
the most unfavorable circumstances, is httle short of mi-
raculous.

My shaft was drawn back its full length— my eye had
centered its sharp point upon the left breast of my adver-
sary; and then he launched his hatchet and I released my
arrow. At the instant that our missiles flew I leaped to one
side, but the Sagoth sprang forward to follow up his at-
tack with a spear thrust. I felt the swish of the hatchet as
it grazed my head, and at the same instant my shaft
pierced the Sagoth's savage heart, and with a single groan
he lunged almost at my feet— stone dead.

Close behind him were two more— fifty yards perhaps
—but the distance gave me time to snatch up the dead
guardsman's shield, for the close call his hatchet had just
given me had borne in upon me the urgent need I had for
one. Those which I had purloined at Phutra we had not
been able to bring along because their size precluded our
conceahng them within the skins of the Mahars which
had brought us safely from the city.

With the shield slipped well up on my left arm I let fly
another arrow, which brought down a second Sagoth, and
then as his fellow's hatchet sped toward me I caught it
upon the shield, and fitted another shaft for him; but he
did not wait to receive it. Instead, he turned and re-
treated toward the main body of gorilla-men. Evidently
he had seen enough of me for the moment.

Once more I took up my flight, nor were the Sagoths
apparently overanxious to press their pursuit so closely as
before. Unmolested I reached the top of the canon where
I found a sheer drop of two or three hundred feet to the

118 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

bottom of a rocky chasm; but on the left a narrow ledge
rounded the shoulder of the overhanging cliff. Along this
I advanced, and at a sudden turning, a few yards beyond
the caiion's end, the path widened, and at my left I saw
the opening to a large cave. Before, the ledge continued
imtil it passed from sight about another projecting
buttress of the mountain.

Here, I felt, I could defy an army, for but a single
foeman could advance upon me at a time, nor could he
know that I was awaiting him until he came full upon me
around the comer of the turn. About me lay scattered
stones crumbled from the cliff above. They were of vari-
ous sizes and shapes, but enough were of handy dimen-
sions for use as ammunition in heu of my precious arrows.
Gathering a number of stones into a httle pile beside the
mouth of the cave I waited the advance of the Sagoths.

As I stood there, tense and silent, Hstening for the first
faint sound that should announce the approach of my en-
emies, a sHght noise from within the cave's black depths
attracted my attention. It might have been produced by
the moving of the great body of some huge beast rising
from the rocky floor of its lair. At almost the same instant
I thought that I caught the scraping of hide sandals upon
the ledge beyond the turn. For the next few seconds my
attention was considerably divided.

And then from the inky blackness at my right I saw
two flaming eyes glaring into mine. They were on a level
that was over two feet above my head. It is true that the
beast who owned them might be standing upon a ledge
within the cave, or that it might be rearing up upon its
hind legs; but I had seen enough of the monsters of Pellu-
cidar to know that I might be facing some new and
frightful Titan whose dimensions and ferocity ecHpsed
those of any I had seen before.

Whatever it was, it was coming slowly toward the en-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 119

trance of the cave, and now, deep and forbidding, it ut-
tered a low and ominous growl. I waited no longer to dis-
pute possession of the ledge with the thing which owned
that voice. The noise had not been loud— I doubt if the
Sagoths heard it at all— but the suggestion of latent possi-
bihties behind it was such that I knew it would only ema-
nate from a gigantic and ferocious beast.

As I backed along the ledge I soon was past the mouth
of the cave, where I no longer could see those fearful
flaming eyes, but an instant later I caught sight of the
fiendish face of a Sagoth as it was warily advancing be-
yond the cliffs turn on the far side of the cave*s mouth.
As the fellow saw me he leaped along the ledge in pur-
suit, and after him came as many of his companions as
could crowd upon each other's heels. At the same time
the beast emerged from the cave, so that he and the
Sagoths came face to face upon that narrow ledge.

The thing was an enormous cave bear, rearing its colos-
sal bulk fully eight feet at the shoulder, while from the tip
of its nose to the end of its stubby tail it was fully twelve
feet in length. As it sighted the Sagoths it emitted a most
frightful roar, and with open mouth charged full upon
them. With a cry of terror the foremost gorilla-man
tiurned to escape, but behind him he ran full upon his on-
rushing companions.

The horror of the following seconds is indescribable.
The Sagoth nearest the cave bear, finding his escape
blocked, turned and leaped dehberately to an awful
death upon the jagged rocks three hundred feet below.
Then those giant jaws reached out and gathered in the
next— there was a sickening sound of crushing bones, and
the mangled corpse was dropped over the chffs edge. Nor
did the mighty beast even pause in his steady advance
along the ledge.

Shrieking Sagoths were now leaping madly over the

120 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

precipice to escape him, and the last I saw he rounded
the turn still pursuing the demoralized remnant of the
man hunters. For a long time I could hear the horrid roar-
ing of the brute intermingled with the screams and
shrieks of his victims, until finally the awful sounds dwin-
dled and disappeared in the distance.

Later I learned from Ghak, who had finally come to his
tribesmen and returned with a party to rescue me, that
the ryth, as it is called, pursued the Sagoths until it had
exterminated the entire band. Ghak was, of course, posi-
tive that I had fallen prey to the terrible creature, which,
within Pellucidar, is truly the king of beasts.

Not caring to venture back into the canon, where I
might fall prey either to the cave bear or the Sagoths I
continued on along the ledge, believing that by following
around the mountain I could reach the land of Sari from
another direction. But I evidently became confused by
the twisting and turning of the canons and gullies, for I
did not come to the land of Sari then, nor for a long time
thereafter.

CHAPTER XIV

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

With no heavenly guide, it is httle wonder that I became
confused and lost in the labyrinthine maze of those
mighty hills. What, in reahty, I did was to pass entirely
through them and come out above the valley upon the
farther side. I know that I wandered for a long time, until
tired and hungry I came upon a small cave in the face of
the hmestone formation which had taken the place of the
granite farther back.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 121

The cave which took my fancy lay halfway up the
precipitous side of a lofty cUff. The way to it was such
that I knew no extremely formidable beast could frequent
it, nor was it large enough to make a comfortable habitat
for any but the smaller mammals or reptiles. Yet it was
with the utmost caution that I crawled within its dark in-
terior.

Here I found a rather large chamber, lighted by a nar-
row cleft in the rock above which let the sunhght filter in
in sufficient quantities partially to dispel the utter dark-
ness which I had expected. The cave was entirely empty,
nor were there any signs of its having been recently occu-
pied. The opening was comparatively small, so that after
considerable effort I was able to lug up a bowlder from
the valley below which entirely blocked it.

Then I returned again to the valley for an armful of
grasses and on this trip was fortunate enough to knock
over an orthopi, the diminutive horse of Pellucidar, a ht-
tle animal about the size of a fox terrier, which aboimds
in all parts of the inner world. Thus, with food and bed-
ding I returned to my lair, where after a meal of raw
meat, to which I had now become quite accustomed, I
dragged the bowlder before the entrance and ciurled my-
self upon a bed of grasses— a naked, primeval, cave man,
as savagely primitive as my prehistoric progenitors.

I awoke rested but hungry, and pushing the bowlder
aside crawled out upon the httle rocky shelf which was
my front porch. Before me spread a small but beautiful
valley, through the center of which a clear and sparkhng
river wound its way down to an inland sea, the blue
waters of which were just visible between the two moun-
tain ranges which embraced this httle paradise. The sides
of the opposite hills were green with verdure, for a great
forest clothed them to the foot of the red and yellow and
copper green of the towering crags which formed their

122 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

summit. The valley itself was carpeted with a luxm*iaiit
grass, while here and there patches of wild flowers made
great splashes of vivid color against the prevailing green.

Dotted over the face of the valley were Httle clusters of
palmlike trees— three or four together as a rule. Beneath
these stood antelope, while others grazed in the open, or
wandered gracefully to a near-by ford to drink. There
were several species of this beautiful animal, the most
magnificent somewhat resembling the giant eland of
Africa, except that their spiral horns form a complete
curve backward over their ears and then forward again
beneath them, ending in sharp and formidable points
some two feet before the face and above the eyes. In size
they remind one of a pure bred Hereford bull, yet they
are very agile and fast. The broad yellow bands that
stripe the dark roan of their coats made me take them for
zebra when I first saw them. All in all they are handsome
animals, and added the finishing touch to the strange and
lovely landscape that spread before my new home.

I had determined to make the cave my headquarters,
and with it as a base make a systematic exploration of the
surrounding country in search of the land of Sari. First I
devoured the remainder of the carcass of the orthopi I
had killed before my last sleep. Then I hid the Great Se-
cret in a deep niche at the back of my cave, rolled the
bowlder before my front door, and with bow, arrows,
sword, and shield scrambled down into the peaceful
valley.

The grazing herds moved to one side as I passed
through them, the fittle orthopi evincing the greatest
wariness and galloping to safest distances. All the animals
stopped feeding as I approached, and after moving to
what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating
me with serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the
old bull antelopes of the striped species lowered his head

Edgar Rice Burroughs 123

and bellowed angrily— even taking a few steps in my di-
rection, so that I thought he meant to charge; but after I
had passed, he resumed feeding as though nothing had
disturbed him.

Near the lower end of the valley I passed a number of
tapirs, and across the river saw a great sadok, the enor-
mous double-homed progenitor of the modem rhinoceros.
At the valley's end the cHffs upon the left run out into the
sea, so that to pass around them as I desired to do it was
necessary to scale them in search of a ledge along which I
might continue my journey. Some fifty feet from the base
I came upon a projection which formed a natural path
along the face of the chff, and this I followed out over the
sea toward the cliffs end.

Here the ledge inchned rapidly upward toward the top
of the chffs—the stratum which formed it evidentiy hav-
ing been forced up at this steep angle when the moim-
tains behind it were bom. As I cHmbed carefully up the
ascent my attention suddenly was attracted aloft by the
sound of strange hissing, and what resembled the flapping
of wdngs.

And at the first glance there broke upon my horrified
vision the most frightful thing I had seen even within
Pellucidar. It was a giant dragon such as is pictured in the
legends and fairy tales of earth folk. Its huge body must
have measinred forty feet in length, while the bat-hke
wings that supported it in midair had a spread of fully
thirty. Its gaping jaws were armed with long, sharp teeth,
and its claws equipped with horrible talons.

The hissing noise which had first attracted my attention
was issuing from its throat, and seemed to be directed at
something beyond and below me which I could not see.
The ledge upon which I stood terminated abruptly a few
paces farther on, and as I reached the end I saw the cause
of the reptile's agitation.

124 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Some time in past ages an earthquake had produced a
fault at this point, so that beyond the spot where I stood
the strata had shpped down a matter of twenty feet. The
result was that the continuation of my ledge lay twenty
feet below me, where it ended as abruptly as did the end
upon which I stood.

And here, evidently halted in flight by this insur-
mountable break in the ledge, stood the object of the
creature's attack— a girl cowering upon the narrow plat-
form, her face buried in her arms, as though to shut out
the sight of the frightful death which hovered just above
her.

The dragon was circhng lower, and seemed about to
dart in upon its prey. There was no time to be lost, scarce
an instant in which to weigh the possible chances that I
had against the awfully armed creature; but the sight of
that frightened girl below me called out to all that was
best in me, and the instinct for protection of the other sex,
which nearly must have equaled the instinct of self-
preservation in primeval man, drew me to the girl's side
like an irresistible magnet.

Almost thoughtless of the consequences, I leaped from
the end of the ledge upon which I stood, for the tiny shelf
twenty feet below. At the same instant the dragon darted
in toward the girl, but my sudden advent upon the scene
must have startled him for he veered to one side, and
then rose above us once more.

The noise I made as I landed beside her convinced the
girl that her end had come, for she thought that I was the
dragon; but finally when no cruel fangs closed upon her
she raised her eyes in astonishment. As they fell upon me
the expression that came into them would be difficult to
describe; but her feehngs could scarcely have been one
whit more comphcated than my own— for the wide eyes
that looked into mine were those of Dian the Beautiful.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 125

"Dian!" I cried. "DianI Thank God that I came in
time."

''You?" she whispered, and then she hid her face again;
nor could I tell whether she were glad or angry that I had
come.

Once more the dragon was sweeping toward ns, and so
rapidly that I had no time to unsHng my bow. All that I
could do was to snatch up a rock, and hurl it at the thing s
hideous face. Again my aim was true, and with a hiss of
pain and rage the reptile wheeled once more and soared
away.

Quickly I fitted an arrow now that I might be ready at
the next attack, and as I did so I looked down at the girl,
so that I surprised her in a surreptitious glance which she
was steahng at me; but immediately, she again covered
her face with her hands.

*XiOok at me, Dian," I pleaded. "Are you not glad to
see me?**

She looked straight into my eyes.

1 hate you,*' she said, and then, as I was about to beg
for a fair hearing she pointed over my shoulder. "The
thipdar comes," she said, and I turned again to meet the
reptile.

So this was a thipdar. I might have known it. The cruel
bloodhound of the Mahars. The long-extinct pterodactyl
of the outer world. But this time I met it with a weapon it
never had faced before. I had selected my longest arrow,
and with all my strength had bent the bow until the very
tip of the shaft rested upon the thumb of my left hand,
and then as the great creature darted toward us I let
drive straight for that tough breast.

Hissing like the escape valve of a steam engine, the
mighty creature fell turning and twisting into the sea
below, my arrow buried completely in its carcass. I

126 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

turned toward the girl. She was looking past me. It was
evident that she had seen the thipdar die.

"Dian," I said, *'won't you tell me that you are not
sorry that I have found you?"

"I hate you," was her only reply; but I imagined that
there was less vehemence in it than before— yet it might
have been but my imagination.

'^Why do you hate me, Dian?" I asked, but she did not
answer me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, "and what has
happened to you since Hooja freed you from the Sa-
go ths?"

At first I thought that she was going to ignore me en-
tirely, but finally she thought better of it.

"I was again running away from Jubal the Ugly One,"
she said. "After I escaped from the Sagoths I made my
way alone back to my own land; but on account of Jubal I
did not dare enter the villages or let any of my friends
know that I had returned for fear that Jubal might find
out. By watching for a long time I found that my brother
had not yet returned, and so I continued to hve in a cave
beside a valley which my race seldom frequents, awaiting
the time that he should come back and free me from
Jubal.

"But at last one of JubaFs hunters saw me as I was
creeping toward my father's cave to see if my brother had
yet returned and he gave the alarm and Jubal set out
after me. He has been pursuing me across many lands. He
cannot be far behind me now. When he comes he will kill
you and carry me back to his cave. He is a terrible man. I
have gone as far as I can go, and there is no escape," and
she looked hopelessly up at the continuation of the ledge
twenty feet above us.

"But he shall not have me," she suddenly cried, with
great vehemence. "The sea is there"— she pointed over the

Edgar Rice Burroughs 127

edge of the cliff— "and the sea shall have me rather than
Jubal/*

"But I have you now Dian,** I cried; "nor shall Jubal,
nor any other have you, for you are mine/* and I seized
her hand, nor did I lift it above her head and let it fall in
token of release.

She had risen to her feet, and was looking straight into
my eyes with level gaze.

"I do not beheve you," she said, "for if you meant it
you would have done this when the others were present
to vdtness it— then I should truly have been your mate;
now there is no one to see you do it, for you know that
without witnesses your act does not bind you to me,** and
she withdrew her hand from mine and turned away.

I tried to convince her that I was sincere, but she sim-
ply couldn't forget the humihation that I had put upon
her on that other occasion.

"If you mean all that you say you will have ample
chance to prove it,*' she said, "if Jubal does not catch and
kill you. I am in your power, and the treatment you ac-
cord me will be the best proof of your intentions toward
me. I am not your mate, and again I tell you that I hate
you, and that I should be glad if I never saw you again.**

Dian certainly was candid. There was no gainsaying
that. In fact I found candor and directness to be quite a
marked characteristic of the cave men of Pellucidar. Fi-
nally I suggested that we make some attempt to gain my
cave, where we might escape the searching Jubal, for I
am free to admit that I had no considerable desire to
meet the formidable and ferocious creature, of whose
mighty prowess Dian had told me when I first met her.
He it was who, armed with a puny knife, had met and
killed a cave bear in a hand-to-hand struggle. It was Jubal
who could cast his spear entirely through the armored
carcass of the sadok at fifty paces. It was he who had

128 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

crushed the skull of a charging dyryth with a single blow
of his war club. No, I was not pining to meet the Ugly
One— and it was quite certain that I should not go out
and hunt for him; but the matter was taken out of my
hands very quickly, as is often the way, and I did meet
Jubal the Ugly One face to face.

This is how it happened. I had led Dian back along the
ledge the way she had come, searching for a path that
would lead us to the top of the cHff, for I knew that we
could then cross over to the edge of my own Httle valley,
where I felt certain we should find a means of ingress
from the cliflF top. As we proceeded along the ledge I gave
Dian minute directions for finding my cave against the
chance of something happening to me. I knew that she
would be quite safely hidden away from pursuit once she
gained the shelter of my lair, and the valley would afford
her ample means of sustenance.

Also, I was very much piqued by her treatment of me.
My heart was sad and heavy, and I wanted to make her
feel badly by suggesting that something terrible might
happen to me— that I might, in fact, be killed. But it
didn t work worth a cent, at least as far as I could per-
ceive. Dian simply shrugged those magnificent shoulders
of hers, and murmured something to the effect that one
was not rid of trouble so easily as that.

For a while I kept still. I was utterly squelched. And to
think that I had twice protected her from attack— the last
time risking my Iffe to save hers. It was incredible that
even a daughter of the Stone Age could be so ungrateful—
so heardess; but maybe her heart partook of the qualities
of her epoch.

Presently we found a rift in the chff which had been
widened and extended by the action of water draining
through it from the plateau above. It gave us a rather
rough climb to the smnmit, but finally we stood upon the

Edgar Rice Burroughs 129

level mesa which stretched back for several miles to the
main mountain range. Behind us lay the broad inland sea,
curving upward in the horizonless distance to merge into
the blue of the sky, so that for all the world it looked as
though the sea lapped back to arch completely over us
and disappear beyond the distant mountains at our backs
—the weird and uncanny aspect of the seascapes of Pellu-
cidar balk description.

At oin* right lay a dense forest, but to the left the coun-
try was open and clear to the plateau's farther verge. It
was in this direction that our way led, and we had turned
to resiune our journey when Dian touched my arm. I
turned to her, thinking that she was about to make peace
overtures; but I was mistaken.

**Jubal," she said, and nodded toward the forest.

I looked, and there, emerging from the dense wood,
came a perfect whale of a man. He must have been seven
feet tall, and proportioned accordingly. He still was too
far oflF to distinguish his features.

"Run," I said to Dian. **I can engage him until you get
a good start. Maybe I can hold him until you have gotten
entirely away," and then, without a backward glance, I
advanced to meet the Ugly One. I had hoped that Dian
would have a kind word to say to me before she went, for
she must have known that I was going to my death for
her sake; but she never even so much as bid me good-bye,
and it was with a heavy heart that I strode through the
flower-bespangled grass to my doom.

When I had come close enough to Jubal to distinguish
his features I understood how it was that he had earned
the sobriquet of Ugly One. Apparently some fearful beast
had ripped away one entire side of his face. The eye was
gone, the nose, and all the flesh, so that his jaws and all
his teeth were exposed and grinning through the horrible
scar.

130 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Formerly he may have been as good to look upon as the
others of his handsome race, and it may be that the terri-
ble result of this encounter had tended to sour an already
strong and brutal character. However this may be it is
quite certain that he was not a pretty sight, and now that
his features, or what remained of them, were distorted in
rage at the sight of Dian with another male, he was in-
deed most terrible to see— and much more terrible to
meet.

He had broken into a run now, and as he advanced he
raised his mighty spear, while I halted and fitting an
arrow to my bow took as steady aim as I could. I was
somewhat longer than usual, for I must confess that the
sight of this awful man had wrought upon my nerves to
such an extent that my knees were anything but steady.
What chance had I against this mighty warrior for whom
even the fiercest cave bear had no terrors! Could I hope
to best one who slaughtered the sadok and the dyryth
single-handed I I shuddered; but, in fairness to myself, my
fear was more for Dian than for my own fate.

And then the great brute launched his massive stone-
tipped spear, and I raised my shield to break the force of
its terrific velocity. The impact hurled me to my knees,
but the shield had deflected the missile and I was un-
scathed. Jubal was rushing upon me now with the only
remaining weapon that he carried— a murderous-looking
knife. He was too close for a careful bowshot, but I let
drive at him as he came, without taking aim. My arrow
pierced the fleshy part of his thigh, inflicting a painful but
not disabling wound. And then he was upon me.

My agility saved me for the instant. I ducked beneath
his raised arm, and when he wheeled to come at me again
he found a sword's point in his face. And a moment later
he felt an inch or two of it in the muscles of his knife arm,
so that thereafter he went more warily.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 131

It was a duel of strategy now— the great, hairy man ma-
neuvering to get inside my guard where he could bring
those giant thews to play, while my wits were directed to
the task of keeping him at arm's length. Thrice he rushed
me, and thrice I caught his knife blow upon my shield.
Each time my sword found his body— once penetrating to
his lung. He was covered with blood by this time, and the
internal hemorrhage induced paroxysms of coughing that
brought the red stream through the hideous mouth and
nose, covering his face and breast with bloody froth. He
was a most unlovely spectacle, but he was far from dead.

As the duel continued I began to gain confidence, for,
to be perfecdy candid, I had not expected to survive the
first rush of that monstrous engine of ungovemed rage
and hatred. And I think that Jubal, from utter contempt
of me, began to change to a feeHng of respect, and then in
his primitive mind there evidendy loomed the thought
that perhaps at last he had met his master, and was facing
his end.

At any rate it is only upon this hypothesis that I can ac-
count for his next act, which was in the nature of a last
resort— a sort of forlorn hope, which could only have been
bom of the behef that if he did not kill me quickly I
should kill him. It happened on the occasion of his fourth
charge, when, instead of striking at me with his knife, he
dropped that weapon, and seizing my sword blade in
both his hands wrenched the weapon from my grasp as
easily as from a babe.

Flinging it far to one side he stood motionless for just
an instant glaring into my face with such a horrid leer of
mahgnant triumph as to almost unnerve me— then he
sprang for me with his bare hands. But it was Jubal's day
to learn new methods of warfare. For the first time he had
seen a bow and arrows, never before that duel had he

132 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

beheld a sword, and now he learned what a man who
knows may do with his bare fists.

As he came for me, hke a great bear, I ducked again
beneath his outstretched arm, and as I came up planted
as clean a blow upon his jaw as ever you have seen. Down
went that great mountain of flesh sprawHng upon the
groimd. He was so surprised and dazed that he lay there
for several seconds before he made any attempt to rise,
and I stood over him with another dose ready when he
should gain his knees.

Up he came at last, almost roaring in his rage and
mortification; but he didn't stay up— I let him have a left
fair on the point of the jaw that sent him tumbhng over
on his back. By this time I think Jubal had gone mad with
hate, for no sane man would have come back for more as
many times as he did. Time after time I bowled him over
as fast as he could stagger up, until toward the last he lay
longer on the ground between blows, and each time came
up weaker than before.

He was bleeding very profusely now from the wound in
his limgs, and presently a terrific blow over the heart sent
him reehng heavily to the ground, where he lay very still,
and somehow I knew at once that Jubal the Ugly One
would never get up again. But even as I looked upon that
massive body lying there so grim and terrible in death, I
could not beheve that I, single-handed, had bested this
slayer of fearful beasts— this gigantic ogre of the Stone
Age.

Picking up my sword I leaned upon it, looking down on
the dead body of my foeman, and as I thought of the bat-
tle I had just fought and won a great idea was born in my
brain— the outcome of this and the suggestion that Perry
had made within the city of Phutra. If skill and science
could render a comparative pygmy the master of this
mighty brute, what could not the brute's fellows accom-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 133

plish with the same skill and science. Why all Pellucidar
would be at their feet— and I would be their king and
Dian their queen.

DianI A httle wave of doubt swept over me. It was
quite within the possibihties of Dian to look down upon
me even were I king. She was quite the most superior per-
son I ever had met— with the most convincing way of let-
ting you know that she was superior. Well, I could go to
the cave, and tell her that I had killed Jubal, and then she
might feel more kindly toward me, since I had freed her
of her tormentor. I hoped that she had found the cave
easily— it would be terrible had I lost her again, and I
turned to gather up my shield and bow to hurry after her,
when to my astonishment I found her standing not ten
paces behind me.

"Girll" I cried, "what are you doing here? I thought
that you had gone to the cave, as I told you to do.'*

Up went her head, and the look that she gave me took
all the majesty out of me, and left me feehng more like
the palace janitor— if palaces have janitors.

"As you told me to do I" she cried, stamping her Httle
foot. "I do as I please. I am the daughter of a king, and,
furthermore, I hate you."

I was dumbfounded— this was my thanks for saving her
from Jubal! I turned and looked at the corpse. "May be
that I saved you from a worse fate, old man," I said, but I
guess it was lost on Dian, for she never seemed to notice
it at all.

"Let us go to my cave," I said, "I am tired and
hungry."

She followed along a pace behind me, neither of us
speaking. I was too angry, and she evidently didn't care
to converse with the lower orders. I was mad all the way
through, as I had certainly felt that at least a word of
thanks should have rewarded me, for I knew that even by

134 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

her own standards I must have done a very wonderful
thing to have killed the redoubtable Jubal in a hand-to-
hand encounter.

We had no difficulty in finding my lair, and then I went
down into the valley and bowled over a small antelope,
which I dragged up the steep ascent to the ledge before
the door. Here we ate in silence. Occasionally I glanced
at her, thinking that the sight of her tearing at raw flesh
with her hands and teeth Hke some wild animal would
cause a revulsion of my sentiments toward her; but to my
surprise I found that she ate quite as daintily as the most
civihzed woman of my acquaintance, and finally I found
myself gazing in foolish rapture at the beauties of her
strong, white teeth. Such is love.

After our repast we went down to the river together
and bathed our hands and faces, and then after drinking
oiu: fill went back to the cave. Without a word I crawled
into the farthest comer and, curling up, was soon asleep.

When I awoke I found Dian sitting in the doorway
looking out across the valley. As I came out she moved to
one side to let me pass, but she had no word for me. I
wanted to hate her, but I couldn't. Every time I looked at
her something came up in my throat, so that I nearly
choked. I had never been in love before, but I did not
need any aid in diagnosing my case— I certainly had it
and had it bad. God, how I loved that beautiful, disdain-
ful, tantahzing, prehistoric girll

After we had eaten again I asked Dian if she intended
returning to her tribe now that Jubal was dead, but she
shook her head sadly, and said that she did not dare, for
there was still Jubal's brother to be considered— his oldest
brother.

**What has he to do with it?" I asked. "Does he too
want you, or has the option on you become a family heir-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 135

loom, to be passed on down from generation to genera-
tion?"

She was not quite sure as to what I meant

"It is probable," she said, "that they all will want re-
venge for the death of Jubal— there are seven of them—
seven terrible men. Someone may have to kill them all, if
I am to return to my people."

It began to look as though I had assumed a contract
much too large for me— about seven sizes, in fact.

"Had Jubal any cousins?" I asked. It was just as well to
know the worst at once.

"Yes," replied Dian, *TDut they don't count— they all
have mates. JubaFs brothers have no mates because Jubal
could get none for himself. He was so ugly that women
ran away from him— some have even thrown themselves
from the cHffs of Amoz into the Darel Az rather than
mate with the Ugly One."

"But what had that to do with his brothers?" I asked.

"I forget that you are not of Pellucidar," said Dian,
with a look of pity mixed with contempt, and the con-
tempt seemed to be laid on a httle thicker than the cir-
cumstance warranted— as though to make quite certain
that I shouldn't overlook it. "You see," she continued, "a
younger brother may not take a mate until all his older
brothers have done so, unless the older brother waives his
prerogative, which Jubal would not do, knowing that as
long as he kept them single they would be all the keener
in aiding him to secure a mate."

Noticing that Dian was becoming more communicative
I began to entertain hopes that she might be warming up
toward me a bit, although upon what slender thread I
hung my hopes I soon discovered.

"As you dare not return to Amoz," I ventured, "what is
to become of you since you caimot be happy here with
me, hating me as you do?"

136 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

"I shall have to put up with you," she repHed coldly,
'until you see fit to go elsewhere and leave me in peace,
then I shall get along very well alone."

I looked at her in utter amazement. It seemed incredi-
ble that even a prehistoric woman could be so cold and
heartless and ungrateful. Then I arose.

*1 shall leave you now'* I said haughtily, "I have had
quite enough of your ingratitude and your insults," and
then I tinned and strode majestically down toward the
valley. I had taken a hundred steps in absolute silence,
and then Dian spoke.

"I hate you!" she shouted, and her voice broke— in rage,
I thought.

I was absolutely miserable, but I hadn't gone too far
when I began to reahze that I couldn't leave her alone
there without protection, to hunt her own food amid the
dangers of that savage world. She might hate me, and
revile me, and heap indignity after indignity upon me, as
she already had, until I should have hated her; but the
pitiful fact remained that I loved her, and I couldn't leave
her there alone.

The more I thought about it the madder I got, so that
by the time I reached the valley I was furious, and the re-
sult of it was that I turned right around and went up that
cliff again as fast as I had come down. I saw that Dian
had left the ledge and gone within the cave, but I bolted
right in after her. She was lying upon her face on the pile
of grasses I had gathered for her bed. When she heard me
enter she sprang to her feet Hke a tigress.

**I hate youl" she cried.

Coming from the briUiant hght of the noonday sun into
the semidarkness of the cave I could not see her features,
and I was rather glad, for I disliked to think of the hate
that I should have read there.

I never said a word to her at first. I just strode across

Edgar Rice Burroughs 137

the cave and grasped her by the wrists, and when she
struggled, I put my arm around her so as to pinion her
hands to her sides. She fought Hke a tigress, but I took my
free hand and pushed her head back— I imagine that I
had suddenly turned brute, that I had gone back a thou-
sand million years, and was again a veritable cave man
taking my mate by force— and then I kissed that beautiful
mouth again and again.

"Dian," I cried, shaking her roughly, "I love you. Can't
you understand that I love you? That I love you better
than all else in this world or my own? That I am going to
have you? That love hke mine cannot be denied?"

I noticed that she lay very still in my arms now, and as
my eyes became accustomed to the hght I saw that she
was smihng— a very contented, happy smile. I was thun-
derstruck. Then I reahzed that, very gently, she was try-
ing to disengage her arms, and I loosened my grip upon
them so that she could do so. Slowly they came up and
stole about my neck, and then she drew my hps down to
hers once more and held them there for a long time. At
last she spoke.

**Why didn't you do this at first, David? I have been
waiting so long."

"WhatI" I cried. *^ou said that you hated mel"

"Did you expect me to run into your arms, and say that
I loved you before I knew that you loved me?" she asked.

"But I have told you right along that I love you," I
said.

"Love speaks in acts," she rephed. **You could have
made your mouth say what you wished it to say, but just
now when you came and took me in your arms your heart
spoke to mine in the language that a woman's heart un-
derstands. What a silly man you are, David."

"Then you haven't hated me at all, Dian?" I asked.

"I have loved you always," she whispered, "from the

138 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

first moment that I saw you, although I did not know it
until that time you struck down Hooja the Sly One, and
then spurned me."

"But I didn't spurn you, dear," I cried. *1 didn't know
your ways— I doubt if I do now. It seems incredible that
you could have reviled me so, and yet have cared for me
all the time."

"You might have known," she said, "when I did not
run away from you that it was not hate which chained me
to you. While you were batthng with Jubal, I could have
run to the edge of the forest, and when I had learned the
outcome of the combat it would have been a simple thing
to have eluded you and returned to my own people."

"But Jubal's brothers— and cousins—" I reminded her,
'Tiow about them?"

She smiled, and hid her face on my shoulder.

"I had to tell you something, David," she whispered. "I
must needs have some excuse for remaining near you."

**You httle sinnerl" I exclaimed. "And you have caused
me all this anguish for nothingl"

"I have suffered even more," she answered simply, "for
I thought that you did not love me, and I was helpless. I
couldn't come to you and demand that my love be re-
turned, as you have just come to me. Just now when you
went away hope went with you. I was wretched, terrified,
miserable, and my heart was breaking. I wept, and I have
not done that before since my mother died," and now I
saw that there was the moisture of tears about her eyes. It
was near to making me cry myself when I thought of all
that poor child had been through. Motherless and unpro-
tected; hunted across a savage, primeval world by that
hideous brute of a man; exposed to the attacks of the
coundess fearsome denizens of its moimtains, its plains,
and its jungles— it was a miracle that she had survived at
aU.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 139

To me it was a revelation of the things my early fore-
bears must have endured that the human race of the
outer crust might survive. It made me very proud to think
that I had won the love of such a woman. Of course she
couldn*t read or write; there was nothing cultured or
refined about her as you judge culture and refinement;
but she was the essence of all that is best in woman, for
she was good, and brave, and noble, and virtuous. And
she was all tliese things in spite of the fact that their ob-
servance entailed suffering and danger and possible
death.

How much easier it would have been to have gone to
Jubal in the first place! She would have been his lawful
mate. She would have been queen in her own land— and it
meant just as much to the cave woman to be a queen in
the Stone Age as it does to the woman of today to be a
queen now; it's all comparative glory any way you look at
it, and if there were only half-naked savages on the outer
crust today, you*d find that it would be considerable glory
to be the wife of a Dahomey chief.

I couldn't help but compare Dian's action with that of a
splendid young woman I had known in New York— I
mean splendid to look at and to talk to. She had been
head over heels in love with a chum of mine— a clean,
manly chap— but she had married a broken-down, disrep-
utable old debauchee because he was a count in some
dinky little European principafity that was not even ac-
corded a distinctive color by Rand McNally.

Yes, I was mighty proud of Dian.

After a time we decided to set out for Sari, as I was
anxious to see Perry, and to know that all was right with
him. I had told Dian about our plan of emancipating the
human race of Pellucidar, and she was fairly wild over it.
She said that if Dacor, her brother, would only return he
could easily be king of Amoz, and that then he and Ghak

140 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

could form an alliance. That would give us a flying start,
for the Sarians and the Amozites were both very powerful
tribes. Once they had been armed with swords, and bows
and arrows, and trained in their use we were confident
that they could overcome any tribe that seemed disin-
chned to join the great army of federated states with
which we were planning to march upon the Mahars.

I explained the various destructive engines of war
which Perry and I could construct after a Httle experi-
mentation—gunpowder, rifles, cannon, and the like, and
Dian would clap her hands, and throw her arms about my
neck, and tell me what a wonderful thing I was. She was
beginning to think that I was omnipotent although I re-
ally hadn't done anything but talk— but that is the way
with women when they love. Perry used to say that if a
fellow was one-tenth as remarkable as his wdfe or mother
thought him, he would have the world by the tail with a
down-hill drag.

The first time we started for Sari I stepped into a nest
of poisonous vipers before we reached the valley. A little
fellow stung me on the ankle, and Dian made me come
back to the cave. She said that I mustn't exercise, or it
might prove fatal— if it had been a full-grown snake that
struck me she said, I wouldn't have moved a single pace
from the nest— I'd have died in my tracks, so virulent is
the poison. As it was I must have been laid up for quite a
while, though Dian's poultices of herbs and leaves finally
reduced the swelling and drew out the poison.

The episode proved most fortunate, however, as it gave
me an idea which added a thousandfold to the value of
my arrows as missiles of offense and defense. As soon as I
was able to be about again, I sought out some adult
vipers of the species which had stung me, and having
killed them, I extracted their virus, smearing it upon the
tips of several arrows. Later I shot a hyaenodon with one

Edgar Rice Burroughs 141

of these, and though my arrow inflicted but a superficial
flesh wound the beast crumpled in death almost immedi-
ately he was hit.

We now set out once more for the land of the Sarians,
and it was with feelings of sincere regret that we bade
good-bye to our beautiful Garden of Eden, in the compar-
ative peace and harmony of which we had hved the hap-
piest moments of our hves. How long we had been there I
did not know, for as I have told you, time had ceased to
exist for me beneath that eternal noonday sun— it may
have been an hour, or a month of earthly time; I do not
know.

CHAPTER XV

BACK TO EARTH

We crossed the river and passed through the mountains
beyond, and finally we came out upon a great level plain
which stretched away as far as the eye could reach. I can-
not tell you in what direction it stretched even if you
would care to know, for all the while that I was within
Pellucidar I never discovered any but local methods of in-
dicating direction— there is no north, no south, no east, no
west. Up is about the only direction which is well
defined, and that, of course, is down to you of the outer
crust. Since the sun neither rises nor sets there is no
method of indicating direction beyond visible objects
such as high mountains, forests, lakes, and seas.

The plain which Hes beyond the white cUffs which
flank the Darel Az upon the shore nearest the Mountains
of the Clouds is about as near to direction as any Pelluci-
darian can come. If you happen not to have heard of the

142 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

Darel Az, or the white ch£Fs, or the Mountains of the
Clouds you feel that there is something lacking, and long
for the good old understandable northeast or southwest of
the outer world.

We had barely entered the great plain when we discov-
ered two enormous animals approaching us from a great
distance. So far were they that we could not distinguish
what manner of beasts they might be, but as they came
closer, I saw that they were enormous quadrupeds, eighty
or a hundred feet long, with tiny heads perched at the top
of very long necks. Their heads must have been quite
forty feet from the ground. The beasts moved very slowly
—that is their action was slow— but their strides covered
such a great distance that in reahty they traveled consid-
erably faster than a man walks.

As they drew still nearer we discovered that upon the
back of each sat a human being. Then Dian knew what
they were, though she never before had seen one.

"They are lidis from the land of the Thorians," she
cried. "Thoria hes at the outer verge of the Land of
Awful Shadow. The Thorians alone of all the races of
Pellucidar ride the Hdi, for nowhere else than beside the
dark coimtry are they found."

"What is the Land of Awful Shadow?" I asked.

"It is the land which Hes beneath the Dead World,"
rephed Dian; "the Dead World which hangs forever be-
tween the sun and Pellucidar above the Land of Awful
Shadow. It is the Dead World which makes the great
shadow upon this portion of Pellucidar."

I did not fully understand what she meant, nor am I
sure that I do yet, for I have never been to that part of
Pellucidar from which the Dead World is visible; but
Perry says that it is the moon of Pellucidar— a tiny planet
within a planet— and that it revolves about the earth's axis

Edgar Rice Burroughs 143

coincidently with the earth, and thus is always above the
same spot within Pellucidar.

I remember that Perry was very much excited when I
told him about this Dead World, for he seemed to think
that it explained the hitherto inexphcable phenomena of
nutation and the procession of the equinoxes.

When the two upon the Udis had come quite close to us
we saw that one was a man and the other a woman. The
former had held up his two hands, palms toward us, in
sign of peace, and I had answered him in kind, when he
suddenly gave a cry of astonishment and pleasure, and
slipping from his enormous mount ran forward toward
Dian, throwing his arms about her.

In an instant I was white with jealousy, but only for an
instant; since Dian quickly drew the man toward me, tell-
ing him that I was David, her mate.

"And this is my brother, Dacor the Strong One,
David," she said to me.

It appeared that the woman was Dacor s mate. He had
found none to his liking among the Sari, nor farther on
until he had come to the land of the Thoria, and there he
had found and fought for this very lovely Thorian maiden
whom he was bringing back to his own people.

When they had heard our story and our plans they de-
cided to accompany us to Sari, that Dacor and Ghak
might come to an agreement relative to an aUiance, as
Dacor was quite as enthusiastic about the proposed anni-
hilation of the Mahars and Sagoths as either Dian or I.

After a journey which was, for Pellucidar, quite ime-
ventful, we came to the first of the Sarian villages which
consists of between one and two hundred artificial caves
cut into the face of a great chff. Here to our immense
dehght, we found both Perry and Ghak. The old man was
quite overcome at sight of me for he had long since given
me up as dead.

144 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

When I introduced Dian as my wife, he didn't quite
know what to say, but he afterward remarked that with
the pick of two worlds I could not have done better.

Ghak and Dacor reached a very amicable arrangement,
and it was at a council of the head men of the various
tribes of the Sari that the eventual form of government
was tentatively agreed upon. Roughly, the various king-
doms were to remain virtually independent, but there was
to be one great overlord, or emperor. It was decided that
I should be the first of the dynasty of the emperors of
Pellucidar.

We set about teaching the women how to make bows
and arrows, and poison pouches. The young men hunted
the vipers which provided the virus, and it was they who
mined the iron ore, and fashioned the swords under
Perry's direction. Rapidly the fever spread from one tribe
to another until representatives from nations so far dis-
tant that the Sarians had never even heard of them came
in to take the oath of allegiance which we required, and
to learn the art of making the new weapons and using
them.

We sent our young men out as instructors to every na-
tion of the federation, and the movement had reached co-
lossal proportions before the Mahars discovered it. The
first intimation they had was when three of their great
slave caravans were annihilated in rapid succession. They
could not comprehend that the lower orders had suddenly
developed a power which rendered them really formi-
dable.

In one of the skirmishes with slave caravans some of
our Sarians took a number of Sagoth prisoners, and
among them were two who had been members of the
guards within the building where we had been confined
at Phutra. They told us that the Mahars were frantic with
rage when they discovered what had taken place in the

Edgar Rice Burroughs 145

cellars of the building. The Sagoths knew that something
very terrible had befallen their masters, but the Mahars
had been most careful to see that no inlding of the true
nature of their vital aflBiction reached beyond their own
race. How long it would take for the race to become ex-
tinct it was impossible even to guess; but that this must
eventually happen seemed inevitable.

The Mahars had oflpered fabulous rewards for the cap-
ture of any one of us ahve, and at the same time had
threatened to inflict the direst punishment upon whom-
ever should harm us. The Sagoths could not understand
these seemingly paradoxical instructions, though their
purpose was quite evident to me. The Mahars wanted the
Great Secret, and they knew that we alone could dehver
it to them.

Perry's experiments in the manufacture of gunpowder
and the fashioning of rifles had not progressed as rapidly
as we had hoped— there was a whole lot about these two
arts which Perry didn't know. We were both assured that
the solution of these problems would advance the cause
of civilization within Pellucidar thousands of years at a
single stroke. Then there were various other arts and
sciences which we wished to introduce, but our combined
knowledge of them did not embrace the mechanical de-
tails which alone could render them of commercial, or
practical value.

"David," said Perry, immediately after his latest failure
to produce gunpowder that would even bum, "one of us
must return to the outer world and bring back the infor-
mation we lack. Here we have all the labor and materials
for reproducing anything that ever has been produced
above— what we lack is knowledge. Let us go back and
get that knowledge in the shape of books— then this world
will indeed be at our feet."

And so it was decided that I should return in the pros-

146 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

pector, which still lay upon the edge of the forest at the
point where we had first penetrated to the surface of the
inner world. Dian would not hsten to any arrangement
for my going which did not include her, and I was not
sorry that she wished to accompany me, for I wanted her
to see my world, and I wanted my world to see her.

With a large force of men we marched to the great iron
mole, which Perry soon had hoisted into position with its
nose pointed back toward the outer crust. He went over
all the machinery carefully. He replenished the air tanks,
and manufactured oil for the engine. At last everything
was ready, and we were about to set out when our
pickets, a long, thin line of which had surrounded our
camp at all times, reported that a great body of what ap-
peared to be Sagoths and Mahars was approaching from
the direction of Phutra.

Dian and I were ready to embark, but I was anxious to
v^tness the first clash between two fair-sized armies of
the opposing races of Pellucidar. I realized that this was
to mark the historic beginning of a mighty struggle for
possession of a world, and as the first emperor of Pelluci-
dar I felt that it was not alone my duty, but my right, to
be in the thick of that momentous struggle.

As the opposing army approached we saw that there
were many Mahars with the Sagoth troops— an indication
of the vast importance which the dominant race placed
upon the outcome of this campaign, for it was not cus-
tomary with them to take active part in the sorties which
their creatures made for slaves— the only form of warfare
which they waged upon the lower orders.

Ghak and Dacor were both v^th us, having come pri-
marily to view the prospector. I placed Ghak with some
of his Sarians on the right of our battle line. Dacor took
the left, while I commanded the center. Behind us I sta-
tioned a sufficient reserve under one of Ghak's head men.

Edgar Rice Burroughs 147

The Sagoths advanced steadily with menacing spears,
and I let them come until they were within easy bowshot
before I gave the word to fire.

At the first volley of poison-tipped arrows the front
ranks of the gorilla-men crumpled to the ground; but
those behind charged over the prostrate forms of their
comrades in a wild, mad rush to be upon us with their
spears. A second volley stopped them for an instant, and
then my reserve sprang through the openings in the firing
hne to engage them with sword and shield.

The clumsy spears of the Sagoths were no match for
the swords of the Sarian and Amozite, who turned the
spear thrusts aside with their shields and leaped to close
quarters with their hghter, handier weapons.

Ghak took his archers along the enemy's flank, and
while the swordsmen engaged them in front, he poured
volley after volley into their unprotected left. The Mahars
did httle real fighting, and were more in the way than
otherwise, though occasionally one of them would fasten
its powerful jaws upon the arm or leg of a Sarian.

The battle did not last a great while, for when Dacor
and I led om- men in upon the Sagoth's right with naked
swords they were already so demoraHzed that they turned
and fled before us. We pursued them for some time, tak-
ing many prisoners and recovering nearly a hundred
slaves, among whom was Hooja the Sly One.

He told me that he had been captured while on his way
to his own land; but that his life had been spared in hope
that through him the Mahars would learn the wherea-
bouts of their Great Secret. Ghak and I were incHned to
think that the Sly One had been guiding this expedition
to the land of Sari, where he thought that the book might
be found in Perry's possession; but we had no proof of
this and so we took him in and treated him as one of us.

148 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

although none Hked him. And how he rewarded my gen-
erosity you shall presently learn.

There were a number of Mahars among our prisoners,
and so fearful were om: own people of them that they
would not approach them unless completely covered from
the sight of the reptiles by a piece of skin. Even Dian
shared the popular superstition regarding the evil effects
of exposure to the eyes of angry Mahars, and though I
laughed at her fears I was willing enough to humor them
if it would reheve her apprehension in any degree, and so
she sat apart from the prospector, near which the Mahars
had been chained, while Perry and I again inspected
every portion of the mechanism.

At last I took my place in the driving seat, and called to
one of the men without to fetch Dian. It happened that
Hooja stood quite close to the doorway of the prospector,
so that it was he who, v^thout my knowledge, went to
bring her; but how he succeeded in accomphshing the
fiendish thing he did, I cannot guess, unless there were
others in the plot to aid him. Nor can I beHeve that, since
all my people were loyal to me and would have made
short work of Hooja had he suggested the heartless
scheme, even had he had time to acquaint another with
it. It was all done so quickly that I may only beHeve that
it was the result of sudden impulse, aided by a number of,
to Hooja, fortuitous circiunstances occurring at precisely
the right moment.

All I know is that it was Hooja who brought Dian to
the prospector, still wrapped from head to toe in the skin
of an enormous cave Hon which had covered her since the
Mahar prisoners had been brought into camp. He depos-
ited his burden in the seat beside me. I was all ready to
get under way. The good-byes had been said. Perry had
grasped my hand in the last, long farewell. I closed and

Edgar Rice Burroughs 149

barred the outer and inner doors, took my seat again at
the driving mechanism, and pulled the starting lever.

As before on that far-gone night that had witnessed our
first trial of the iron monster, there was a frightful roaring
beneath us— the giant frame trembled and vibrated— there
was a rush of sound as the loose earth passed up through
the hollow space between the inner and outer jackets to
be deposited in our wake. Once more the thing was off.

But on the instant of departure I was nearly thrown
from my seat by the sudden lurching of the prospector. At
first I did not realize what had happened, but presently it
dawned upon me that just before entering the crust the
towering body had fallen through its supporting scaffold-
ing, and that instead of entering the ground vertically we
were plunging into it at a different angle. Where it would
bring us out upon the upper crust I could not even con-
jecture. And then I turned to note the effect of this
strange experience upon Dian. She still sat shrouded in
the great sldn.

"Come, come," I cried, laughing, "come out of your
shell. No Mahar eyes can reach you here," and I leaned
over and snatched the hon skin from her. And then I
shrank back upon my seat in utter horror.

The thing beneath the skin was not Dian— it was a hid-
eous Mahar. Instantly I realized the trick that Hooja had
played upon me, and the purpose of it. Rid of me, forever
as he doubtless thought, Dian would be at his mercy.
Frantically I tore at the steering wheel in an effort to turn
the prospector back toward Pellucidar; but, as on that
other occasion, I could not budge the thing a hair.

It is needless to recount the horrors or the monotony of
that journey. It varied but httle from the former one
which had brought us from the outer to the inner world.
Because of the angle at which we had entered the ground
the trip required nearly a day longer, and brought me out

150 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

here upon the sands of the Sahara instead of in the
United States as I had hoped.

For months I have been waiting here for a white man
to come. I dared not leave the prospector for fear I should
never be able to find it again—the shifting sands of the
desert would soon cover it, and then my only hope of re-
turning to my Dian and her Pellucidar would be gone for-
ever.

That I ever shall see her again seems but remotely pos-
sible, for how may I know upon what part of Pellucidar
my return journey may terminate— and how, wdthout a
north or a south or an east or a west may I hope ever to
find my way across that vast world to the tiny spot where
my lost love Hes grieving for me?

That is the story as David Innes told it to me in the
goat-skin tent upon the rim of the great Sahara Desert.
The next day he took me out to see the prospector— it was
precisely as he had described it. So huge was it that it
could have been brought to this inaccessible part of the
world by no means of transportation that existed there— it
could only have come in the way that David Innes said it
came— up through the crust of the earth from the inner
world of Pellucidar.

I spent a week with him, and then, abandoning my hon
hunt, retimied directly to the coast and hurried to Lon-
don where I purchased a great quantity of stufi^ which he
wished to take back to Pellucidar with him. There were
books, rifles, revolvers, ammunition, cameras, chemicals,
telephones, telegraph instruments, wire, tools and more
books— books upon every subject under the sun. He said
he wanted a library with which they could reproduce the
wonders of the twentieth century in the Stone Age and if
quantity counts for anything I got it for him.

I took the things back to Algeria myself, and accompa-

Edgar Rice Burroughs 151

nied them to the end of the raihoad; but from here I was
recalled to America upon important business. However, I
was able to employ a very trustworthy man to take charge
of the caravan— the same guide, in fact, who had accom-
panied me on the previous trip into the Sahara— and after
writing a long letter to Innes in which I gave him my
American address, I saw the expedition head south.

Among the other things which I sent to Innes was over
five hundred miles of double, insulated wire of a very
fine gauge. I had it packed on a special reel at his sugges-
tion, as it was his idea that he could fasten one end here
before he left and by paying it out through the end of the
prospector lay a telegraph Hne between the outer and
inner worlds. In my letter I told him to be sure to mark
the terminus of the line very plainly with a high cairn, in
case I was not able to reach him before he set out, so that
I might easily find it and communicate with him should
he be so fortunate as to reach Pellucidar.

I received several letters from him after I returned to
America— in fact he took advantage of every northward-
passing caravan to drop me word of some sort. His last
letter was written the day before he intended to depart.
Here it is.

My dear friend:

Tomorrow I shall set out in quest of Pellucidar and
Dian. That is if the Arabs don't get me. They have been
very nasty of late. I don't know the cause, but on two oc-
casions they have threatened my life. One, more friendly
than the rest, told me today that they intended attacking
me tonight. It would be unfortunate should anything of
that sort happen now that I am so nearly ready to depart.

However, maybe I will be as well o£F, for the nearer the
hour approaches, the slenderer my chances for success ap-
pear.

Here is the friendly Arab who is to take this letter north

0 44

152 AT THE EARTH'S CORE

for me, so good-bye, and God bless you for your kindness
to me.

The Arab tells me to hurry, for he sees a cloud of sand
to the south— he thinks it is the party coming to murder
me, and he doesn't want to be found with me. So good-
bye again.

Yours,

David Innes.

A year later found me at the end of the railroad once
more, headed for the spot where I had left Innes. My first
disappointment was when I discovered that my old guide
had died within a few weeks of my return, nor could I
find any member of my former party who could lead me
to the same spot.

For months I searched that scorching land, interview-
ing countless desert sheiks in the hope that at last I might
find one who had heard of Innes and his wonderful iron
mole. Constantly my eyes scanned the blinding waste of
sand for the ricky cairn beneath which I was to find the
wires leading to Pellucidar— but always was I unsuc-
cessful.

And always do these awful questions harass me when I
think of David Innes and his strange adventures.

Did the Arabs murder him, after all, just on the eve of
his departure? Or, did he again turn the nose of his iron
monster toward the inner world? Did he reach it, or lies
he somewhere biuried in the heart of the great crust? And
if he did come again to Pellucidar was it to break through
into the bottom of one of her great island seas, or among
some savage race far, far from the land of his heart's
desire?

Does the answer he somewhere upon the bosom of the
broad Sahara, at the end of two tiny wares, hidden be-
neath a lost cairn? I wonder.

(continued from front flap)
of control and burrowing at incredible speed,
the pair cut clear through to the center of the
earth — breaking into Pellucidar, a hidden
land more strange and terrifying than the
certain death they'd expected.

Just out of their craft for scant mo-
ments, the two hapless explorers were taken
prisoner by a tribe of loathsome, monstrous
creatures who held all humans as slaves.
But Perry and David soon learned that even
their menacing captors were controlled by
a greater power... the Mahars. Half-bird,
half-lizard, the Mahars kept their savage
world in a grip of icy fear through their de-
veloped power of mass telepathy.

Only David, with his unswerving brav-
ery and resourcefulness, dares formulate a
plan to rid Pellucidar of domination and set
the humans free. But he is imperiled at every
turn by gigantic beasts that roam the torrid
jungles; by voracious man-eating plants that
devour anything coming within reach; and,
above all, by the all-seeing, all-hearing
Mahars themselves who desperately try to
thwart his escape and destroy him. Whether
David is ultimately successful is a question
only readers of this highly imaginative novel
will be able to answer.

This special Book Club edition fea-
tures eight exciting interior photographs and
a full-color dust jacket from the spectacular
American International film, AT THE
EARTH'S CORE, starring Peter Gushing and
Doug McClure.

PRINTED IN USA.
3111

SAMUEL Z. ARKOFF Presents

A Max J. Rosenberg
and Milton Subotsky Production

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS'

AT THE
EARTH'S CORE

STARRING

Doug McClure*Peter Cushlng*Caroline Munro

Executive Producer Harry N. Blum

Screenplay by Milton Suborsky

Produced by John Dark • Directed by Kevin Connor

An AI\/IERICAN INTERNATIONAL Release